Hundreds Gather to Remember Girls Who Died in House Fire

The Fairfax County father who tried to rescue his two daughters from their burning home broke down in tears yesterday at their memorial service as he remembered the girls and the efforts of neighbors to help him.

Louis Whitsett, a lawyer, called his daughters -- Ashley, 13, and Morgan, 16 -- his greatest blessing and role models. Morgan was a pianist and junior at West Potomac High School; Ashley was in honors classes in the eighth grade at Carl Sandburg Middle School.

"They were so alike in many ways, so kind and generous in spirit," Whitsett said with emotion. "When they came home from school, they always put a smile on my face." He added wryly, "Even when they were yelling at me."

More than 550 people turned out to honor the girls at the hour-long service at Groveton Baptist Church in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, where classmates of the young women read Scripture and sang spirituals and their former music teachers played flute and piano solos. Two pictures of the girls in large silver frames sat on the altar, swathed in white netting.

Whitsett, 53, told the congregation that he had deliberately taken off his glasses because to see such a large crowd in focus would have been overwhelming.

"When I was in the hospital, in a fog, I didn't appreciate how many people my daughters had touched," he said. "Now this is the final goodbye."

Whitsett tried desperately to rescue the teens from the upstairs bedroom in their small stone Cape Cod off Route 1 as the home was consumed by a fast-moving blaze just after midnight Dec. 28. He later told family members he had been awakened by the sound of Morgan crying, "Daddy, Daddy." Neighbors who raced to the scene found Whitsett trying to coax his daughters down from the upstairs windows. They tried to reach them with a ladder but were turned back by the heavy flames.

Firefighters who arrived moments after a 911 call found that the two girls had died from smoke inhalation, trapped in the upstairs bedroom. Whitsett was treated at Washington Hospital Center's burn unit. Family members said the girls' mother, Parthenia Whitsett, 51, a federal administrative assistant, was not at yesterday's service and was still under medical care.

Fairfax Fire and Rescue spokesman Dan Schmidt said yesterday that investigators had not yet determined the cause of the blaze. The home had no smoke alarms, officials said.

"It's still being investigated, and I can't qualify it more than that," Schmidt said. "It's a sad, tragic situation. It really is."

Margot Brown, a Falls Church resident and relative, said the father was not ready to be interviewed.

"He's taking it moment by moment," Brown said. "He is extremely grateful for the support from the girls' schools, friends, neighbors and just the community in general. The outpouring of support has been unbelievable."

At yesterday's service, teachers and friends of the sisters paid tribute to the girls as pictures of them flashed on screens overhead. There was a backpack-toting Ashley navigating the hallways of school, her big sister at an electric keyboard.

Ashley "didn't like to say much, but when she said something, she was direct and focused," her father said, which earned her the nickname at home of "Chairman of the Board." (Morgan, because of her musical talent, was "The Maestro.")

Ashley excelled in math and science and created impressionistic paintings, one of which hung in the office of Del. Kristen J. Amundson (D-Fairfax) after she won an art contest.

Morgan was a pianist who played marimba in the marching band at West Potomac High. She adored composer Frederic Chopin, her friend and classmate Portia Weems recalled, and was always ready to talk about his work or debate music theory with classmates.

"Music is awesome," Morgan wrote on her MySpace page. "If I could, I would learn every single instrument in the whole world. But unfortunately that won't be happening very soon lol."

Adam Foreman, her piano teacher and associate band director at West Potomac, played Chopin for her tribute at yesterday's service. As the notes of the composer's Nocturne in G Minor filled the air, the congregation wept.