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Hey, have any of you guys been notified about this
tragedy?
73
Jim
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 5:16 PM
Subject: Don Erickson Dies in Fire
Jim,
I think you used to be in the
IRCA didn't you? You remember Don Erickson? Sad to tell you that he died in a
house fire this past Monday. Following is the article. Man, what a sad way for
such a nice guy to go. Though I have not talked to him in years despite numerous
attempts to reach him, I have good memories of DEE, and the IRCA benefitted
greatly from his many years of service.
Bill Powers
The following is from the
Press-Enterprise Tues. 3/1
Riverside man dies
in fire
BLAZE: It was aided by stacks of magazines and newspapers in his
home, an official says.
08:19 AM PST
on Tuesday, March
1, 2005
Special to The Press-Enterprise
A Riverside man who was a
self-described "pack rat" was killed Monday afternoon when a fire tore through
the newspaper-and-magazine-stuffed rooms of his Essex Street
house.
Neighbors identified the victim as Donald
Erickson.
Firefighters said the blaze began somewhere in the back of the
house, in the area where Erickson's body was discovered. The cause of the fire
has not been determined.
Firefighters break the windows of a house on Essex Street in
Riverside after a fire was reported by neighbors
Monday.
Riverside
Fire Department Division Chief Tedd Laycock said the fire spread quickly, aided
by ceiling-high stacks of newspapers, magazines and other items.
"For
some reason, he had all the windows boarded up," Laycock said. Even when
firefighters broke through the boards, they were still blocked by dense stacks
of boxes and papers. Rows of file boxes labeled "Magazines" could be seen
through the windows from the street.
Laycock said neighbors' calls to 911
came in at 12:52 p.m. Eight units responded. The fire was contained by 2 p.m.,
but brown smoke continued to pour out of the roof from a fire deep within the
house.
Thelma Cryst, who lived across the street from Erickson for
decades, said he was friendly but reclusive.
"He was a very quiet person.
I didn't know him too well. We would chitchat, but it was never anything really
personal," she said.
"He always helped out with anything I needed," Cryst
said, explaining that at Christmastime he would help move her furniture to make
way for her tree.
She said Erickson had a lot of medical problems. "I've
been concerned about him a long time," Cryst said. "He hasn't been happy for,
really, a long time," she said, walking out onto her driveway in socks and
slippers. "When your lease is up, your lease is up."
"He called himself a
pack rat," said Josie Herrera, who lived nearby. But neighbors said they had no
idea of the extent of his condition until today.
"He was a nice guy,"
Herrera said, "but he was always locked in there. I got the impression that he
didn't want nobody checking up on him."
Whenever neighbors went to check
on him, she said, "He would say, 'I'm OK. I'm OK.' He didn't want nobody
worrying about him."
By the time
firefighters arrived, neighbors had already broken open a door and a
window.
"We didn't know what to do," Herrera said. "We wanted to help.
But there was so much smoke. We couldn't."
Cryst said Erickson had been
teaching a computer class twice a week. She said he moved to the neighborhood in
the 1970s.
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