POSTED: January 01, 2002
MODENA — Yesterday, as neighbors in this close-knit rural town cobbled together money to help pay for the funerals of two preschoolers killed Saturday in a house fire, investigators ruled that the children themselves had accidentally started the fire.
Charles Anderson, 4, and Veronica Doran, 2, brother and sister, were killed by "an accidental fire started by playing with a lighter," said Harrison Holt, Chester County fire marshal. The Chester County coroner, Rodger Rothenberger said Sunday that both children died of smoke inhalation.
The fire started shortly before 10:30 a.m. in the second-floor bedroom where the children's bodies were found, Holt said.
The children's mother, Phyllis Buchanan, 23, and her boyfriend, Ronald Doran, 32, were treated Saturday for burns and emotional distress at Brandywine Hospital and released.
Neighbors said they had barely known the family.
"They only just moved in here. They were trying to get back on their feet," said Wilma Tuggle, who lives next door to the burned shell of a house on Mortonville Road. Residents on the block said that Buchanan had moved to Modena from a Coatesville shelter.
Officials at the Coatesville Young Women's Association, where neighbors said Buchanan had lived, said they could not provide information about former residents. But counselors at the shelter said they were familiar with the children and declined further comment.
Neither Buchanan nor Doran returned phone calls placed to a friend's house in Modena where they were staying. Calls placed to Buchanan's mother's house, in Coatesville, also were not returned.
Community leaders here said that even though the family was new to this town, population 600, the borough is chipping in to help.
"This place is so little, nobody outside even knows we exist, so we've got to take care of our own. The second you move in here, you're one of ours," said Ramona Pluck, the borough councilwoman who is engineering a drive to raise money to help pay for the children's funeral. Pluck would not say how much money had been raised.
She said that she spent Sunday and yesterday tacking black-and-white, photocopied fliers soliciting donations on sign posts and walls at the post office and the fire company - "all the places I could think of in Modena," Pluck said.
She said that, by the time it opened yesterday morning, the Modena Fire Company had received dozens of calls from local residents who wanted to help.
Many, such as Mary Woodward, had never met the children or their parents.
"With kids that young, you never think about planning for a funeral, or buying a plot, or anything like that. I kept thinking about how they must have called out to their parents, but the parents just couldn't come. It almost makes you feel like you have to help out," Woodward said.
The funeral for Charles Anderson and Veronica Doran will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Boyd's Funeral Home, 101 South Church St., West Chester, said Joe Boyd, funeral director.
The family will receive visitors at the funeral home from 9 to 10 a.m.
Pluck's fliers ask that donations to help defray funeral costs be made directly to the funeral home.
MODENA — Yesterday, as neighbors in this close-knit rural town cobbled together money to help pay for the funerals of two preschoolers killed Saturday in a house fire, investigators ruled that the children themselves had accidentally started the fire.
Charles Anderson, 4, and Veronica Doran, 2, brother and sister, were killed by "an accidental fire started by playing with a lighter," said Harrison Holt, Chester County fire marshal. The Chester County coroner, Rodger Rothenberger said Sunday that both children died of smoke inhalation.
The fire started shortly before 10:30 a.m. in the second-floor bedroom where the children's bodies were found, Holt said.
The children's mother, Phyllis Buchanan, 23, and her boyfriend, Ronald Doran, 32, were treated Saturday for burns and emotional distress at Brandywine Hospital and released.
Neighbors said they had barely known the family.
"They only just moved in here. They were trying to get back on their feet," said Wilma Tuggle, who lives next door to the burned shell of a house on Mortonville Road. Residents on the block said that Buchanan had moved to Modena from a Coatesville shelter.
Officials at the Coatesville Young Women's Association, where neighbors said Buchanan had lived, said they could not provide information about former residents. But counselors at the shelter said they were familiar with the children and declined further comment.
Neither Buchanan nor Doran returned phone calls placed to a friend's house in Modena where they were staying. Calls placed to Buchanan's mother's house, in Coatesville, also were not returned.
Community leaders here said that even though the family was new to this town, population 600, the borough is chipping in to help.
"This place is so little, nobody outside even knows we exist, so we've got to take care of our own. The second you move in here, you're one of ours," said Ramona Pluck, the borough councilwoman who is engineering a drive to raise money to help pay for the children's funeral. Pluck would not say how much money had been raised.
She said that she spent Sunday and yesterday tacking black-and-white, photocopied fliers soliciting donations on sign posts and walls at the post office and the fire company - "all the places I could think of in Modena," Pluck said.
She said that, by the time it opened yesterday morning, the Modena Fire Company had received dozens of calls from local residents who wanted to help.
Many, such as Mary Woodward, had never met the children or their parents.
"With kids that young, you never think about planning for a funeral, or buying a plot, or anything like that. I kept thinking about how they must have called out to their parents, but the parents just couldn't come. It almost makes you feel like you have to help out," Woodward said.
The funeral for Charles Anderson and Veronica Doran will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Boyd's Funeral Home, 101 South Church St., West Chester, said Joe Boyd, funeral director.
The family will receive visitors at the funeral home from 9 to 10 a.m.
Pluck's fliers ask that donations to help defray funeral costs be made directly to the funeral home.
POSTED: January 01, 2002
MODENA — Yesterday, as neighbors in this close-knit rural town cobbled together money to help pay for the funerals of two preschoolers killed Saturday in a house fire, investigators ruled that the children themselves had accidentally started the fire.
Charles Anderson, 4, and Veronica Doran, 2, brother and sister, were killed by "an accidental fire started by playing with a lighter," said Harrison Holt, Chester County fire marshal. The Chester County coroner, Rodger Rothenberger said Sunday that both children died of smoke inhalation.
The fire started shortly before 10:30 a.m. in the second-floor bedroom where the children's bodies were found, Holt said.
The children's mother, Phyllis Buchanan, 23, and her boyfriend, Ronald Doran, 32, were treated Saturday for burns and emotional distress at Brandywine Hospital and released.
Neighbors said they had barely known the family.
"They only just moved in here. They were trying to get back on their feet," said Wilma Tuggle, who lives next door to the burned shell of a house on Mortonville Road. Residents on the block said that Buchanan had moved to Modena from a Coatesville shelter.
Officials at the Coatesville Young Women's Association, where neighbors said Buchanan had lived, said they could not provide information about former residents. But counselors at the shelter said they were familiar with the children and declined further comment.
Neither Buchanan nor Doran returned phone calls placed to a friend's house in Modena where they were staying. Calls placed to Buchanan's mother's house, in Coatesville, also were not returned.
Community leaders here said that even though the family was new to this town, population 600, the borough is chipping in to help.
"This place is so little, nobody outside even knows we exist, so we've got to take care of our own. The second you move in here, you're one of ours," said Ramona Pluck, the borough councilwoman who is engineering a drive to raise money to help pay for the children's funeral. Pluck would not say how much money had been raised.
She said that she spent Sunday and yesterday tacking black-and-white, photocopied fliers soliciting donations on sign posts and walls at the post office and the fire company - "all the places I could think of in Modena," Pluck said.
She said that, by the time it opened yesterday morning, the Modena Fire Company had received dozens of calls from local residents who wanted to help.
Many, such as Mary Woodward, had never met the children or their parents.
"With kids that young, you never think about planning for a funeral, or buying a plot, or anything like that. I kept thinking about how they must have called out to their parents, but the parents just couldn't come. It almost makes you feel like you have to help out," Woodward said.
The funeral for Charles Anderson and Veronica Doran will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Boyd's Funeral Home, 101 South Church St., West Chester, said Joe Boyd, funeral director.
The family will receive visitors at the funeral home from 9 to 10 a.m.
Pluck's fliers ask that donations to help defray funeral costs be made directly to the funeral home.
MODENA — Yesterday, as neighbors in this close-knit rural town cobbled together money to help pay for the funerals of two preschoolers killed Saturday in a house fire, investigators ruled that the children themselves had accidentally started the fire.
Charles Anderson, 4, and Veronica Doran, 2, brother and sister, were killed by "an accidental fire started by playing with a lighter," said Harrison Holt, Chester County fire marshal. The Chester County coroner, Rodger Rothenberger said Sunday that both children died of smoke inhalation.
The fire started shortly before 10:30 a.m. in the second-floor bedroom where the children's bodies were found, Holt said.
The children's mother, Phyllis Buchanan, 23, and her boyfriend, Ronald Doran, 32, were treated Saturday for burns and emotional distress at Brandywine Hospital and released.
Neighbors said they had barely known the family.
"They only just moved in here. They were trying to get back on their feet," said Wilma Tuggle, who lives next door to the burned shell of a house on Mortonville Road. Residents on the block said that Buchanan had moved to Modena from a Coatesville shelter.
Officials at the Coatesville Young Women's Association, where neighbors said Buchanan had lived, said they could not provide information about former residents. But counselors at the shelter said they were familiar with the children and declined further comment.
Neither Buchanan nor Doran returned phone calls placed to a friend's house in Modena where they were staying. Calls placed to Buchanan's mother's house, in Coatesville, also were not returned.
Community leaders here said that even though the family was new to this town, population 600, the borough is chipping in to help.
"This place is so little, nobody outside even knows we exist, so we've got to take care of our own. The second you move in here, you're one of ours," said Ramona Pluck, the borough councilwoman who is engineering a drive to raise money to help pay for the children's funeral. Pluck would not say how much money had been raised.
She said that she spent Sunday and yesterday tacking black-and-white, photocopied fliers soliciting donations on sign posts and walls at the post office and the fire company - "all the places I could think of in Modena," Pluck said.
She said that, by the time it opened yesterday morning, the Modena Fire Company had received dozens of calls from local residents who wanted to help.
Many, such as Mary Woodward, had never met the children or their parents.
"With kids that young, you never think about planning for a funeral, or buying a plot, or anything like that. I kept thinking about how they must have called out to their parents, but the parents just couldn't come. It almost makes you feel like you have to help out," Woodward said.
The funeral for Charles Anderson and Veronica Doran will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Boyd's Funeral Home, 101 South Church St., West Chester, said Joe Boyd, funeral director.
The family will receive visitors at the funeral home from 9 to 10 a.m.
Pluck's fliers ask that donations to help defray funeral costs be made directly to the funeral home.
Gravesite Details
Brother, Charles Ralph Anderson III, shares the plot. Find A Grave Memorial# 148958671.
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