Wednesday, May 8, 1996

Eastland fire dispatcher realizes: "That's my house!"

By LORETTA FULTON
Regional Editor

EASTLAND - Richard Robinson gave the directions precisely so the firemen would have no trouble getting to the rural location: "Go south from Spur 490 on County Road 190 about two miles."

Then it dawned on him: "That's my house."
obinson called a neighbor who confirmed his fear. Lightning had struck his house and started the devastating fire.

There was nothing for Robinson to do but turn to his wife, Lois, who was helping him at his job as chief dispatcher for the Eastland County Cooperative Dispatch.

"I just told my wife, 'It's our house.' " Robinson said. "And she said, 'Well, that figures.' "

The Robinsons lost not only their house, part of which was built in 1889 by her grandparents, but also all their possessions and valuables.

"I got a gas grill, broken trampoline and an old swing set we had for the grandkids and that's it,"
Robinson said Tuesday from a motel room where he and Lois will live at least for a week.

However, the Robinsons do have insurance and don't need assistance in replacing their goods, they said.

The greatest inconvenience to the Robinsons now is living in a place not designed for the wheelchair-bound. Robinson has been confined to his chair for 18 years because of a nerve disease and finds it difficult to move about in the confines of a motel room.

A former Eastland County commissioner, Robinson is supervisor at the cooperative dispatch, which serves as a central office to alert all emergency vehicles in the county.

He works one regular shift on Mondays and then fills in for others. When the call came at 12:35 a.m. Monday, Robinson was covering a shift for someone else. Fortunately, the couple said, Lois routinely accompanies her husband to help take calls at the dispatch. Otherwise she would have been at the house when it burned.

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on Robinson despite his despair at the loss. It's not every day a dispatcher routes emergency vehicles to his own house, he said.

"That was a first and I hope the last," he said.

The couple feels blessed to have escaped personal injury, but still irreplaceable items were lost in the fire such as family albums, high school yearbooks, antiques and gifts.

Through tears, Lois described a woodcarving her son and daughter-in-law gave her from a museum that closed in Colorado Springs. And there were the heirlooms that would have been inherited by grandchildren such as the 100-year-old Winchester Sure Shot rifle and a pocketwatch that belonged to Richard's grandfather.

Robinson will continue at his job, and Lois will continue to help him and also volunteer at the Eastland County Food Pantry. Their lives will go on and they will see what the future brings.

"Right now we're just looking at this week," Robinson said.