LAHARPE — Friends are rallying once again in support of Ramona Jeffers, who has suffered a lifetime worth of heartbreak over the past few months.
Jeffers, 68, was one of the 38 displaced nursing home residents at Yates Center Health and Rehab, when it was swept up in a raging wildfire the afternoon of March 14.
She has since been relocated to a nursing home in Neodesha, as were others from the Yates Center facility.
“Her roommate was at Yates Center, too, so she still has a familiar face,” reports longtime friend Larry Laird, who finds himself once again drumming up local support for Jeffers.
“All these people are limited with what they have, anyway,” Laird said.
Upon a recent visit to Neodesha, Laird said he was greeted by Jeffers with a smile.
“Yes, I lost it all,” she told him. “But I’m alive.”
Attempts to speak with Jeffers were unsuccessful because nursing home administrators have asked media to refrain from talking with nursing home staff or residents in the aftermath of the Yates Center fire.
JEFFERS was a longtime LaHarpe resident, along with husband Gale, but was relocated briefly to the Yates Center nursing home less than a year ago for rehabilitation after falling and breaking her hip.
After she recovered, Jeffers returned home to LaHarpe, before suffering a heart attack the last week of January, which sent her to a Kansas City hospital.
It was while Ramona was in Kansas City that a house fire swept through the Jeffers’s LaHarpe home in the early morning hours of Jan. 27.
The house was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived.
Gale Jeffers, along with the couple’s two cats, perished in the blaze. Ramona was still in the hospital.
When Ramona was notified of the fire that destroyed her home, she still expressed a desire to return “home.”
When pressed further about what she meant, she explained she wanted to return to Yates Center, Laird recalled.
“She loved it there,” he said. “She loved the people. That’s where she wanted to be all along.”
But she didn’t get to go there immediately.
With Yates Center Health and Rehab filled to capacity, Jeffers instead was sent to Neodesha Care and Rehab, a sister facility under the Mission Care umbrella.
She stayed there for about a month before a space opened up in Yates Center, Laird said.
Then came the events of March 14, when an out-of-control fire originated near South Owl Lake, just southwest of the facility.
Jeffers was among the 38 residents who were taken from the home to Yates Center High School — the entire building was emptied in 12 minutes — before transported to Neodesha later that evening.
Laird and others around town stay in touch with Jeffers on a regular basis.
He visited her last week, taking a few essentials — candy and a few personal items — and offered to bring more.
Laird also has set up a collection point at LaHarpe City Hall to purchase clothing and other personal items for Jeffers, who is destitute.
A citywide drive in Yates Center after the March 14 fire did the same, to the point no more clothing is needed.
Instead, Laird and others now are asking anyone willing to support Jeffers to do so financially.
Cash donations can be taken to LaHarpe City Hall, or donations may be sent in care of Mission Health Communities, PO Box 265, Yates Center, KS.
JEFFERS has had other heartbreaks on top of the fires and losing her husband and pets.
Less than a day after the Jeffers’s house burned to the ground, looters were spotted attempting to steal items from the couple’s nearby garage.
Laird pulled everything he could from the property, to keep them stored at City Hall for the time being.
Then, one of her closest friends, Iola’s Joanna Butler, died on March 8, less than a week before the Yates Center fire.
“They were very close,” Laird said. “They talked almost every day. It was upsetting, and she cried.”
But as with her other calamities, the tears didn’t last long.
“She’ll cry, and she’ll cry fast, and she gets it out of her system,” Laird said. “Then she smiles again.”
THE HITS haven’t stopped, even since the Yates Center fire.
Laird reported Jeffers fell over the weekend in Neodesha and is briefly confined to a wheelchair. He was uncertain when she’ll be back on her feet again.
Laird plans to hold a rummage sale later this spring during the LaHarpe Citywide Yard Sale, with all of the proceeds to go to Jeffers. An official date has not yet been announced.
Laird also hopes to find new homes for a pair of outdoor cats that Jeffers fed before the home burned.
He continues to feed the animals daily, but the animals remain so skittish he can barely get within eye shot before they scamper away.
“If somebody wants a couple of outdoor cats, let me know,” he said.
Laird doesn’t bat an eye at helping his longtime friend.
“God asks us to do these kinds of things,” he explained. “These are His plans. We want Ramona to go for a better life than what she’s had. We want to see her happy. This is when you get to see humanity at its best.”
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