By Elizabethe Holland
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)  

ST. LOUIS — The address broadcast over the engine house speaker wasn't his mother's, but Capt. Vaughn Rooks, a firefighter with the Community Fire Protection District, had to know for sure.

Firefighters were racing to 7834 Page Avenue in Vinita Terrace. Rooks' mother and two of his brothers lived next door.

"I was just trying to call to see, to make sure, that it was 7834 and not my mom's house," Rooks told a dispatcher.

But it was his mother's house.

The call that came in March 29, 2006, was "a firefighter's worst nightmare," Rooks says. "When you go to work, you never want to hear your own address or somebody's address that you know."

Rooks' mother, Geneva Rooks, 76, died in the fire. And Cindy Schuenke, a friend and co-worker, almost died.

The oldest of Geneva Rooks' seven children, Vaughn Rooks had recently persuaded his mother to move into a retirement complex. Diabetes was wearing her down, and she'd had a difficult time coping with the death in 2002 of her husband of more than 50 years.

After the fire, Rooks and his family consoled themselves with the belief that she had been reunited with her husband and that she had lived a good life centered on her faith.

Still, the fire haunts Rooks. He lives a block from the site and sometimes walks his dog past the dirt lot there now.

It's hard for him to think about the loss of his mother and the losses suffered by Schuenke.

"She is one of the good people," he says.

Copyright 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
All Rights Reserved