Angela Martin reflects back on the day that her husband, Derek Martin, died fighting a fire in St. Louis in 2002. She was sitting with her daughter, Kayla, 11. A photo of Derek is at left. (J.B. Forbes/P-D)
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
11/25/2009
ST. LOUIS — Anne Sebold remembers only two things from the day she learned her husband, city police officer Louis Sebold, 45, had been killed in the line of duty:
The looks on her six children's faces, and the visit from two men who called themselves the BackStoppers.
At the time, she didn't fully realize all that they would do for her. But now, 34 years later, she doesn't know what she would have done without them.
"You felt like you had support," Sebold said. "Like you could do this."
For 50 years this year, the St. Louis-area agency — the only one like it in the country — has filled the financial gap left by fallen heroes.
Because of it, widows have been able to remain in their homes.
Children have achieved college dreams.
Families have stayed together.
In all, 119 St. Louis-area public safety workers have died in the line of duty since BackStoppers' founding in 1959.
Eleven businessmen formed it, concerned about the financial consequences for the widows and orphans, said its director, Ron Battelle, a retired St. Louis County police chief.
The assurance of such help also helped boost recruitment at police and fire departments, he said.
The group now spends about $1 million annually to support survivors of 47 of the fallen — from Gerald Jaeger, a St. Ann officer killed in 1964, to Julius Moore, a St. Louis officer killed Oct. 15.
It depends solely on donations. The largest fundraiser — known as Budweiser Guns 'N Hoses — pits firefighters against police officers in the boxing ring. This year's event is at 7 p.m. tonight at the Scottrade Center.
The money benefits spouses and children of police, firefighters, publicly funded paramedics and EMTs, and volunteer firefighters who die performing their duties in 12 Missouri and 11 Illinois counties around St. Louis.
Visitors bearing money from the agency arrive within hours. Sebold received a check for $2,000 to use as she saw fit. Today, it's $5,000.
Then, families are told to tally all they owe. Soon, house payments are made. Cars loans are paid off. Other debts are wiped clean.
Sebold, 74, said BackStoppers made her $100 monthly house payments after her husband, a 17-year veteran, was shot confronting a gunman outside St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church in 1975.
The agency lost touch with Sebold when she moved to south St. Louis County in the early 1980s, but they reconnected in the mid-1980s.
"They went over all my expenses with me and said, 'You are basically bankrupt,'" she recalled.
Since then, she hasn't paid another house payment, dental or health insurance premium, home improvement loan installment or prescription co-payment.
Sue Reifschneider, 69, of Maryland Heights, said BackStoppers paid off $23,000 in debt after her husband, St. Louis County officer James Reifschneider, 37, was killed by a drunken driver in 1977. Clearing her debt allowed her to become a stay-at-home mom for their three children, then 12 to 17.
"It stabilized them, because they looked for me when they came home from school," she said.
Reifschneider eventually returned to work and landed at the front desk of county police's second precinct about 12 years ago. Being there, among some of her husband's co-workers, makes her feel closer to him.
"I could have never supported those kids," she said. "My son jokes and says without BackStoppers, we'd be living in the park."
That son, Mike Reifschneider, is now a county police lieutenant with a wife and two children of his own. He's comforted knowing BackStoppers would be there for his family, too.
"I know lightning can strike twice," he said. "But because of BackStoppers, we had as few interruptions in life as we could. It's devastating to lose him, but you're not losing your home too or worrying about where the next meal is coming from."
The support is emotional, too, said Emmagene Jordan.
Her husband, county Officer Robert Jordan, was slain in 1981 at a convenience store where he had stopped with his daughter, 11. A man stole Jordan's wallet, saw the badge inside and shot him.
As always, the BackStoppers assigned a "friend of the family" volunteer to stay in touch. The Jordans' "friend," Deacon James Joiner of the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, was invited to one of the daughter's weddings and "got upset" when Emmagene Jordan failed to tell him when her sister died.
"They are my backbone," Emmagene Jordan said, "and you can't do anything without your backbone."
At 17, Robert Jordan Jr. was the oldest of five children. He remembers wondering how his mother would keep the family together. "They took that 'how will we make it?' away," he said.
He's now 46, the age of his father when he died. He's also a St. Louis police sergeant; his sister, is an officer on the same force. BackStoppers paid college tuition for two of his sisters and recently installed a new front door on his mother's house.
Education was the biggest concern for Angela Martin, 45, of Chesterfield, when her husband, St. Louis firefighter Derek Martin, was killed at a blaze in 2002.
Just hours before he died, Derek Martin, 38, called to ask if she had submitted their son's application to Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School. They planned to work overtime to afford the private school's tuition.
"It was the last decision we made together," she said. "When I found out (he died), I thought, 'Now how am I going to do it?'"
Friends and family offered help, but Martin said it wasn't fair to expect that.
"Slowly, when everyone drifts away, BackStoppers is there stepping forward," Martin said. With its help, all three of the children attended MICDS.
For her family, the agency covers college tuition up to the equivalent of what it would cost at the University of Missouri.
Son Jordan, 21, now plays football for Temple University. Denzel, 19, is a freshman at Mizzou. Kayla, 11, dreams of attending the University of California, or Harvard.
Martin said she realized how unique BackStoppers is during a memorial for fallen firefighters in Washington she attended with Laura Morrison, whose husband was killed fighting in the same fire.
"There were all of these other families in this room with us, and we realized nobody else has this program to help them," she said.
Many nonprofit groups donate to families of the fallen nationwide, but Battelle believes none comes close to the longevity and level of financial support BackStoppers provides.
Gloria Triplett didn't know about that depth of commitment when her husband, Michael Triplett, 48, a part-time Washington County sheriff's deputy, was killed in a 2007 car crash while responding to a call.
After that, she said, some people made promises to help that they couldn't, or didn't, keep.
So when a BackStoppers volunteer promised to cover any unpaid funeral expenses and pay off a new Jeep and $20,000 in credit card debt, Triplett doubted it.
She waited for more than a month to cash the $5,000 check they gave her for initial expenses, fearing they'd want it back.
"I was still not thinking they were going to do all that," she said. "But everything he said was true. ... We were able to get completely out of debt so we could start all over. I couldn't do anything but cry."
Now living in East Prairie, Mo., she has started a new job. But she figures she'd need to earn 2½ times as much to pay her medical and rent expenses if BackStoppers didn't help.
"The whole time we were married, my husband would say, 'I want to take care of you and the kids,'" she said. "And in a way, he's still taking care of us ... through BackStoppers."
