JOPLIN, Mo. —
The families of two local ironworkers who helped build part of St. John’s Regional Medical Center received a piece of the hospital on Thursday in their honor.
Robert Riley and Rodney Plumb, who have both since died, were members of a Tulsa, Okla.-based ironworkers union and were hired to help construct the hospital’s tower in the early 1980s. Their families on Thursday received hand-crafted crosses made from the steel that the ironworkers themselves likely had put in place three decades ago.
It was all thanks to Riley’s younger daughter, Rachel McPheron, who was 8 years old when her father died in 1984. The destruction of St. John’s by the May 22, 2011, tornado spurred her to ask for a piece of something that her father had worked on.
“After the tornado, knowing that I really had nothing to look at that my dad had built, I got determined to find out who was taking the hospital down,” she said. “I wasn’t giving up until I got something.”
Several months — and several phone calls — later, she stood in front of the remainder of St. John’s, clutching a steel cross in her hands and nearly overwhelmed with emotion.
“I don’t have a lot of memories (of Riley), and I definitely don’t have a lot of things, so I knew I wanted a part of this,” she said. “I don’t think I could put into words how much it means to me to just have a little piece of something my dad was part of.”
Lynn Plumb, Rodney Plumb’s wife, also received a cross. On Thursday, she carried around a framed photo of her late husband and Riley standing atop the final beam to be placed on the hospital, an American flag flying between them.
“They had been best friends since Day 1,” she said of the ironworkers. “They’d leave together at 6 a.m., ride together, work together.”
Plumb’s mother, Betty McDonald, of Joplin, said all three of her sons — Rodney was her middle child — had been ironworkers.
“I think it’s neat that they did this for us,” she said after receiving her cross. “I think it was so thoughtful.”
The crosses — one large one and five smaller ones — were made from steel beams taken from the remnants of the old hospital, said Jeffrey C. Teagarden, a vice president with Michigan-based Dore & Associates Contracting Inc., which is overseeing demolition of St. John’s.
“We just felt it was fitting to give them some kind of memento out of respect,” he said.
The crosses were crafted by Dennis Hoff, of Sarcoxie, who has been working on the St. John’s site with the demolition company for more than five months.
“I thought about it, and the Mercy cross was the only thing I thought would be fitting from the steel,” he said.
Demolition of the hospital is nearly complete. Crews on Wednesday night took down two more 30-foot bays, leaving 2 1/2 bays that originally were scheduled to be removed Thursday.
Because of rainfall expected from the remnants of Hurricane Isaac, which was expected in Joplin today, crews decided to continue cleanup of the downed bays instead. Heavy rainfall would increase the weight of the debris, thereby increasing the difficulty of its removal and cleanup, said Angie Saporito, a spokeswoman for Mercy Hospital.
St. John’s demolition
DEMOLITION OF THE REMAINDER of the hospital is tentatively set for early next week, according to Mercy Hospital spokeswoman Angie Saporito.
May 2011 Joplin tornado
Related Photos
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Rodney Plumb’s daughter, Annie Ketterer (left); his mother, Betty McDonald; and his wife, Lynn Plumb (right) stand behind a cross created in honor of Plumb’s work on the steel structure of the former St. John’s Regional Medical Center. The occasion Thursday was a ceremony put on by Sisters of Mercy Health System. GLOBE | B.W. SHEPHERD
Discussion
Families of St. John’s ironworkers receive memento from hospital
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