Bob Russako has lived in the Waterford area all his life, with cheerful childhood memories around every corner.
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“Back in the day, we had a beautiful beach down here, we used to go down there and watch Bob Seger and the Amboy Dukes play,” said Russako.
His neighborhood was magic, and so were the days spending time with the Browns, who lived just around the corner—a mom with five kids, all full of life.
“We didn't really get in any trouble other than little antics we all did when we were kids,” he said.
But January 5, 1966, is a day that stifled the joy heard on these streets. An early morning fire ripped through the Brown family’s house on Arcadia Park Drive, tragically killing four of the children: 15-year-old Katheryn, 12-year-old Nancy, 9-year-old Donald and 7-year-old Julia (Julie).
The Pontiac Press, 1966 by WXYZ-TV Channel 7 Detroit on Scribd
“I was supposed to stay the night,” recalls Russako.
Their mom, Barbara, was at work when it happened. The second oldest, Larry, was able to escape by jumping to safety.
Four young lives gone, dreams of the future ripped away. The news was hard to understand.
“My dad woke me up and said, 'you know, it's good you didn't stay over there last night, the house burned down,' and I couldn't believe it,” said Russako. “I knew about the fire, I didn't know about all the kids, and that's when I went to school, and they called me down to the office. I'm thinking, ‘oh, I got in trouble. I must've done something wrong.’ And the principal came out and says ... ‘we're going to let you have a few days off to go be with your friend Larry.’”
Russako would be one of the pallbearers at the funeral, helping to carry the children when he was just a child himself.
“Carrying those four caskets and seeing those four holes in the ground, it was just, that's when everything kind of really sunk in,” he said.
Time would tick on, and he would sometimes check in with Larry and Barbara, but things were different
“I remember him and his mom got a trailer over on Elizabeth Lake and 59 over there. And I remember going over there, and it just didn't feel the same. No kids, it was just Larry and his mom,” he said.
Both Larry and Barbara would pass away years later, but old memories would continue to tug at Russako.
“They didn’t even have a chance to live. Kathy would have been my age. I mean, she missed out on 60 good years of life. And all those kids, it's just too bad,” he said.
Then an impromptu visit to Waterford Center Cemetery to see his old friends once again left him with questions.
“We looked around, looked around. I couldn't find any graves. And I said, 'I can't remember. They're like right here.' And then later I found out that there was no markers at all. So that's what I think, just kind of festered over the years. And I thought I got to do something about that,” he said.
And so, Russako did. He decided to buy grave markers for the four children.
“Can't leave them at those graves all those years. It's just like they were forgotten, you know. And it's not their fault,” he said.
But Russako needed information, birth dates. He posted to Facebook, the community responded, some remembering the tragedy, wanting to help—and then, Nancy Brown reached out.
“He was looking for dates for the kids' birthdays for the house fire. And I go, 'Larry was my husband,' and 'are you the Bob Russako that was his friend?' Because he talked about Bob and he's like, 'yeah,'” said Brown.
Brown said the kids’ mother, Barbara, would often come out to leave flowers in cement planters on their graves, but they would disappear every year.
Eventually, she let it be.
“She just kind of felt like she couldn’t afford the headstone, and she'd rather spend the money on Larry, sister Sue, so, yep, that's what she did,” she said.
Brown said she is grateful to Russako for making this happen now, almost 60 years later.
“Now we have something that we remember them by forever. So, yeah, I think she would just be absolutely thrilled—her and Larry both. They'd be looking down on Bob,” she said.
Russako, Brown and other neighbors plan to hold a little ceremony this summer when the grave markers are finished.
It’s a final chapter to a devastating story—a memorial to live on for the kids whose lives were taken too soon.
“It should have been done a long, long, long time ago,” said Russako. "It's not about me. It's about taking care of those kids."