Man, 88, May Have Been Trying to Save Wife, 84
By Daniel de Vise and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Craig and Pat Reynolds died five feet apart, separated by the glass-paneled kitchen door of their burning home, a few weeks short of their 60th wedding anniversary.
Fire investigators believe a new refrigerator, three days out of the carton, might have sparked the blaze that claimed the Reynoldses' lives. They died early yesterday at the back door of their century-old Kensington home. She was 84 and used a wheelchair and walker to get around the house; he was 88.
"We think he was trying to get in to help her. We think she was trying to get out," said Pete Piringer, Montgomery County fire spokesman. "Their worlds collided right there, and they weren't able to make it."
They were the third and fourth fire fatalities this year in a county where 80 percent of recent fire deaths are seniors, Piringer said.
Osker Craig Reynolds and his wife, Patricia, bought the olive-shingled Victorian for $22,000 in 1960. Fire damage yesterday was estimated at $1.25 million.
The couple lived on a stretch of Baltimore Street called the Horseshoe in Old Kensington, west of Connecticut Avenue and north of the Beltway. He was a retired U.S. Commerce Department economist; she, a retired schoolteacher from the now-defunct Kensington Elementary School.
The fire broke out before 2 a.m. Crashing glass and Craig's cries for help awoke Keely Fraser in the 1898 Victorian next door.
"As soon as I opened my eyes, I could see the orange glow," she recalled.
Fraser and her housemate ran to the front door. Their pleas for help awoke Daniel O'Neill, 22, a senior at the U.S. Naval Academy who lives behind the Reynolds home. "One of them was banging on the door," O'Neill recalled. "So I pushed her aside, and I kicked it in."
O'Neill dived into a cloud of black smoke and felt his way along the wall, screaming, "Is anyone in there?" at the top of his lungs. No one replied. He kept making forays into the house until firefighters arrived.
The Reynoldses' son, Dave Reynolds, said he believes his father got out of the house through the back door and perished trying to return and rescue his wife, who had backed her wheelchair against the sink and was battling the fire as best she could.
His body was found just outside the back door, beneath the collapsed porch. Her body was recovered just inside the door, near her wheelchair and walker. The cause of death for both victims was unclear; Piringer said he was awaiting the results of an autopsy.
Two firefighters and the midshipman were treated for minor injuries. The fire closed Connecticut Avenue in both directions for several predawn hours.
Patricia Reynolds was born in the Illinois town of Martinsville, the daughter of an inventor employed by the Shell Oil Co. He put his eight children through college. It was at the University of Illinois that she met her future husband.
Craig Reynolds graduated at the top of his high school class in Alton, Ill., and had reached his senior year at the university when he met Patricia.
The war put their plans on hold. He served in the Pacific as head of finance for the Tenth Army.
"Around payday," he would later tell his sons, "I was the most respected man around."
The couple married in June 1947 and settled outside Washington. Craig Reynolds went to work for the U.S. Census but moved to the Commerce Department after two years, telling his family, "It'll drive me crazy if I have to count another number," according to Dave Reynolds, their only surviving child. Their firstborn, Craig Bryant, died eight years ago.
The elder Reynolds served in the Commerce Department for 32 years. Retirement suited the pair. Pat, deeply religious, woke at dawn to read the Bible and make coffee and biscuits. She filled the home with antiques, not from Kensington's famed antique row but from Goodwill stores and yard sales. She had an eye for such things.
"Basically, they spent their days drinking coffee, talking to each other and being in love," their son said.
Recent health problems made them more reliant on neighbors. The McCrorys did the couple's grocery shopping, took out their trash and brought in their Washington Times. The Schiponis brought home-cooked meals.
The last time Jack McCrory saw them, on a clear and breezy Sunday, they were sitting on the back porch, enjoying their garden.
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