Sherri Park Residents: 86 Years of Treasures Gone

We interviewed residents who were displaced Thursday in a gas fire at Sherri Park Apartments.  

Cindy Friedman got the call from her mother, Elsie Smith, Thursday afternoon. Smith said that her apartment building was on fire, but that she was not hurt.

The 86-year-old woman lives on the third floor of the north side of the building. Her apartment was fully engulfed in flames, said Friedman.

"86 years of her personal treasures...gone," she wrote to Patch.

Friedman went to the apartment this morning to gather her mother's belongings.

"It’s black. A shell. There is nothing left," she said this afternoon. "Where there were walls there was nothing left."

Friedman gathered her mother's jewelry and a few keepsakes that belonged to her late father. 

"Then I thought, my mom, she’s homeless. If I could find some of her clothes she could feel like she had something." She grabbed a few sweaters from a drawer, but when she got them back to her home, where her mother is staying with her, they stunk.

"We had to throw them away."

They will go back this afternoon to try to salvage more, said Friedman.

Friedman is waiting to find out if Sherri Park has another apartment available for her mother temporarily, but she hopes to find her a place in an assisted living facility soon.