By Jacqueline L. Salmon and Ann O’Hanlon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 18, 2001; Page B01

Each day, the mail brings Traci Rowenhorst another reminder of the death of her husband, a civilian accountant for the Army killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon. Letters and forms are followed by more letters and forms, each from some agency, charity or company addressing Edward Rowenhorst's death.

Household paperwork had been his domain, said Traci Rowenhorst, at 28 the widowed mother of two young daughters. Now the chore she most identifies with her husband is the thing she must confront if she is to be compensated for the loss of his life.

It would be so much simpler without the bureaucracy.

"The Red Cross is kind of disconcerting," she said, giving one example. "I want to say to them, 'The people who sent money in my husband's name, will you please just send it to me? I'll put in the fund for my children.'‚"

Staggering as the pool of money raised for the victims of the September terror assaults may be – more than $1 billion collected by some 200 charities – for the families of those who died here and in New York, much of the money remains in the "promised" category and is months, maybe years, off.

The past eight weeks have been a dollars-and-cents course in reality for the victims' relatives, their grief compounded by the bewildering array of funds that quickly sprang up and confusion over how to tap into them, amid growing public unease over how the charities are handling the donations.

Some families have experienced erratic treatment by the various relief agencies, with different paperwork requirements, sometimes even within the same organization. In New York, relatives have reported creating computerized spreadsheets to keep track of their documents and the aid for which they have applied.

Accessing the funds is made more difficult by the fact that each has different qualifications and requirements – and a separate application process. There is nothing akin to the universal college application to facilitate matters.

"You have to tell your story over and over again," said Donn Marshall, who lost his wife, Shelley, a fellow employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency. "How many times do you want to . . . say, 'My wife died at the Pentagon'? It gets old."

In some households, the paperwork is irksome but essential because they lost their breadwinner on Sept. 11. Some families, in fact, now face having to move. One District mother isn't sure where she will be living come June, when her two teenagers get out of school and the family has to vacate its military housing.

Many families noted in interviews in recent days that the money, while a help, will never give them what they want most: their loved ones back.

In the Washington area, where 189 died at the Pentagon – including 64 on the American Airlines plane that slammed into it on Sept. 11 – relatives of the military personnel killed are eligible for $6,000 in death benefits per family and up to $6,900 for funeral costs. Next of kin of the civilian employees who died are generally eligible for a monthly annuity or a lump-sum payment that is partly scaled to salary.

By and large, the Pentagon victims were a homogenous lot of middle-class wage-earners, which means Social Security checks for their surviving spouses and dependent children, and life insurance and government payments for many of the families. Under one of the federal government's retirement systems, some next of kin may be eligible for a monthly annuity.

And more financial assistance is on the horizon from several fronts, including the American Red Cross, which pledged Wednesday to spend its entire $543 million Liberty Fund on the victims; the United Way of New York, which has $337 million in donations, some of it headed this way; and a fund Congress set up to fend off litigation against the airlines whose planes were hijacked, which could funnel more than $1 million each to some of the families.

Shari Tolbert, whose husband, Vincent, was a Navy lieutenant commander with 14 years in the military, said she has no complaints about the help she has received so far from private sources. The Red Cross covered three months' living expenses for her and her children, as well as lodging, rental cars and other expenses for relatives who traveled here. In addition, the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors paid three months' rent on the Lorton apartment she shares with her three young children.

But the sheer complexity of the process is exhausting, she said.

"My wish at this point is that someone affiliated with the Pentagon victims only would step up – maybe some lawyers locally or some military lawyers – and create some kind of advocacy counsel," said Tolbert, 32. "It doesn't seem to me that [the group of Washington area victims] is that big a number that they couldn't facilitate more."

For others, the bureaucracy that surrounds the aid has seemed unnecessarily cold.

When Abraham Scott asked the Red Cross to help with wife Janice's funeral this Friday, he said he was told he would need to submit receipts for the flowers, caterer and other expenses.

"It doesn't sit well," said the 49-year-old Springfield father of two, adding that he earlier received $20,000 with little difficulty from the Red Cross to cover living expenses for his family and travel costs for relatives who came to Virginia after his wife, an Army budget analyst, was killed.

Red Cross official Luis Garcia expressed surprise that Scott was asked to submit receipts for reimbursement. "That may have been a misunderstanding," said Garcia, who manages the Red Cross family gift program. "We're trying not to have the family members go through that. If they can tell us how much money they spent on a particular funeral, then we need to help them."

Despite the difficulties, many families of Pentagon victims have nothing but praise for the assistance they have received.

And financially, at least, they know they are better off than those other victims who lost their jobs in the economic tidal wave set off by the terrorists, which decimated the region's tourism and travel trade. Those people, the families know, have far fewer financial resources to see them through.

Linda Boone, of Fairfax, whose husband, Canfield, an Army lieutenant colonel, died in the Pentagon, said she got immediate help from the Red Cross and the Army, including advice to apply for Veterans Administration benefits for her three children, two of whom are in college. The Northern Virginia Realtors group also covered the family's house payments for a few months.

"I feel like I have been taken care of," said Boone, who teaches second grade in the county. "I really don't know how people would do it without this help."

Similarly, Beula Yokum, who lost her 27-year-old son, Kevin, a Navy petty officer, said she is content with what she has received. The military returned her son's remains to the family in Lake Charles, La., and paid for his funeral in September, she said. It also inventoried his apartment in New Carrollton, boxed up his belongings and shipped them home.

As for the private aid that's out there, she hasn't seen much need of it.

"A lot of organizations . . . called and said that they have [money] there if we needed it," she said. "But . . . we're doing fine. It's just mentally we have to keep it together. . .‚. Money is not the thing. It will never bring him back."

Others weren't sure what to say when the charities contacted them.

Saundra Woolen said it hasn't been the financial help of strangers but rather the communal embrace of her town of Brewton, Ala., that has helped her cope with the tragedy that claimed her daughter, Army Sgt. Tamara Thurman.

Church groups and neighbors, in the old Southern tradition of church groups and neighbors, filled her house with food in the days after Sept. 11, she said. "We had plenty, plenty to eat." Friends also dropped by to share memories or put their condolences in writing.

Knowing that she was not alone "gives you a lot of strength," she said.

The Red Cross called in September, but Woolen didn't send in an application for assistance until this month. She's not in dire straits financially, she said, but could use a helping hand and some counseling.

Elsewhere, especially in families with young children, the need is more compelling.

Andrea Doctor faces an uncertain future when her two teenagers – Anthony, 16, and Lydeda, 14 – finish the school year in June. For now, the Doctors are being allowed to stay in the military-owned town house near Bolling Air Force Base they occupied before their husband and father, Navy systems technician Johnnie Doctor Jr., was killed.

But after June, Andrea Doctor, 36, isn't sure where they will live. "I'm working on that," she said.

For the time being, she and her children get by on her husband's monthly death benefit from the VA. She's gone back to nursing school at the University of the District of Columbia, which has added to the family's struggle.

As for charitable money, she has applied to the Red Cross for some of the additional funds it announced it was releasing.

"Right now, I'm okay," she said. "But the time is going to come when I'm not going to be."

The families of all the victims who worked at the Pentagon were each assigned a casualty assistance officer to help them plan funerals, complete paperwork and get through the grueling days immediately after the attack. The practice is customary when someone is killed in battle; this time, the Pentagon extended it to include the civilian workers who died in the disaster.

Traci Rowenhorst, of Lake Ridge, who faces her 10th wedding anniversary next week, appreciated the assistance, saying she can't imagine how she would have negotiated the thicket of forms on her own.

But time has moved on – and so has the military. Its round-the-clock Family Assistance Center, hurriedly set up on the afternoon of Sept. 11 in a second-floor ballroom at the Crystal City Sheraton, shut down last month. While it was in operation, it afforded the families easy access to such services as emergency cash, relief organizations, longer-term financial support, counseling and legal services.

A smaller operation, also in Crystal City, closed Nov. 1.

And some of the casualty assistance officers – CAOs in military parlance – have returned to their regular military duties.

Janice Punches wished she still had hers. She said he became a "wonderful friend" in the six weeks he worked with her family following the death of her husband, Jack, deputy director of a counter-drug agency at the Pentagon.

"It was sad when he left," said Punches, 50. "We bawled, we were so upset. He knew who to call and how to get answers. He had all the connections."

Now Punches said she feels like she's been sucked into a vortex of paperwork, red tape and mail – lots of mail, she said, from tax officials, a Social Security representative and lawyers, including one in New York who boasted of his success with a class-action lawsuit.

"I feel deserted," Punches said. "It's scary not knowing how to figure it all out."

For those who still have financial concerns, the Red Cross, under pressure from critics, decided not to reserve any of its $543 million Liberty Fund for uses other than the victims.

Calls began within two days to the approximately 21,000 households – those with family members killed in the attacks, those seriously injured and those displaced by the destruction – that previously received financial aid from the organization, said the Red Cross's Garcia.

In addition, he said Red Cross workers will renew their efforts to locate other next of kin of victims and will check back with the 500 or so people who turned down aid the first time around.

Households will be asked if they need an extension of aid beyond the original three months. Garcia said the agency will aim to cut a check within 48 hours of contacting a family and expects to have all checks out by Dec. 10.

To coordinate the process in New York, where about 4,100 people died, the organization plans to have 200 caseworkers follow individual families. Garcia said the Red Cross sees no need for such a system here because the number of victims is so much smaller.

For some victims' families, it's not the amount of assistance received, but what prompted the gift that matters.

Like others, Donn Marshall has received money in the mail – sometimes a single dollar if that's all the sender could afford. A grade school in Whittier, Calif., sent $177 the students collected by setting up a lemonade stand. A boy from Texas wrote to Marshall's son, Drake, saying that the two shared the same name and that he had read about Drake's mother's death and was sorry.

So far, the family has received six quilts from strangers.

"I've no idea who they are," Marshall said one day last week. "I just got another box today. People have been really incredible like that."

For the Marshalls, as for the other families, the generosity and thoughtfulness of strangers is like salve on an open wound.

"On one hand, we're doing okay," he said. "On the other hand, I don't have a wife, and my kids don't have a mother.

"It's never going to be enough."

Staff writers David A. Fahrenthold, Jennifer Lenhart, Raymond McCaffrey, Michael E. Ruane, Ian Shapira and Debbi Wilgoren contributed to this report.