(October 17, 2007) — Every weekday morning during the school year, Arlene Page would arrive about 6:30 at the Wilson Farms at Dewey Avenue and Bloss Street, leave her Buick LeSabre in the parking lot and take her post on the corner.
Page, 58, has been a crossing guard in this northwest neighborhood — between School 30 and Thomas Jefferson High School — since spring 2005; in the city for 3 1/2 years.
"I usually see her on the corner, I yell to her, 'Cream, no sugar?'" said Vince Grieco, 42, who stopped for his morning coffee at Wilson Farms, as usual, at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
He brought Page, the grandmother to his godchildren, a cup and they talked for 15 minutes, then he left her and headed off to work at Advance Auto Parts. An hour later, 25 minutes before the last morning school bell, Page was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.
In a neighborhood filled with children, many people knew Page, or knew of her. She had become part of their lives.
"I seen Miss Green running down the street," said Sarah Johnson, 41, who operates a day care a few houses away and was loading the last of her kids on the bus as School 30 principal Shirley Green ran past. "When I seen her running, I knew something bad had happened."
Ricardo Torres, 19, of Rochester later turned himself in to police and was charged with a felony count of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. Page wore a reflective vest, carried a stop sign, had just crossed several children and was standing in the crosswalk on the southeast side of the intersection when she was struck, according to police.
Torres is to be arraigned today in City Court. Police said more charges could be filed.
On Tuesday, grief counselors fanned out to schools 30, 34 and 43. Page has worked for the district more than 20 years, serving as a lunchroom aide most recently at School 34, where two of her grandchildren were in the second and third grades. A busload of schoolchildren heading to School 43 witnessed the accident, officials said.
Interim schools Superintendent William Cala said many children had grown very close to Page; some even called her "grandma."
"Some children were very upset today," Cala said, "because their 'grandma' died."
Struck before
Crossing guards are employees of the Rochester Police Department. Police Chief David Moore said Page "was struck while in the line of duty." "She was doing something she was paid to do," Moore said, "protect our children."
Police could not recall another fatality of an on-duty crossing guard in Rochester. But Tuesday marked the second time this year that one of the city's 99 crossing guards has been hit by a vehicle. The first accident, about two months ago, was minor, police said.
Page had been struck before, by a van on Nov. 9, 2004, while working as a crossing guard at North Clinton Avenue and East Ridge Road. She suffered a broken leg and other injuries but later told Donna Page, 38, the third of her four children, "nothing was going to stop (me) from doing it again."
"She loved doing crossing guard. She loves kids," her daughter said, recalling how her mother would make 30 to 50 candy baskets at Christmas and Easter to hand out to her family and to other children.
She also was, by all accounts, a hard worker, trying to make ends meet since her husband died in January 2000. Being a crossing guard in Rochester pays $9.74 an hour. She would leave her morning shift, go to School 34 for lunch duty, then return to Dewey Avenue and Bloss Street for school dismissal.
Page delivered Insider magazine since its inception in 2004, and sold the Democrat and Chronicle on Sundays at Dewey and Ridgeway avenues. She worked at summer carnivals in Kendall and elsewhere.
"Arlene was a person who was trying to do better for herself," said Jim Aina, single-copy distribution operations manager for the newspaper. He last saw Page on Monday when she came in to pay bills for her vending routes. "She was sort of a comical person. She would give me a hard time, always throw jabs at me and stuff. ... She was hardworking. She wouldn't just do her job, she'd take that extra step."
Donna Page said much the same about her mother: "If she wasn't working, it wasn't her. She had to work."
Added family friend Donald Miller, 60: "She would get mad when they'd close the schools."
Terrible truth
Donna Page and Miller share a house on Rugraff Street, about 15 blocks from where Arlene Page was struck. The first news of what happened came from a report on television.
"When I seen it on TV, I knew that was her corner that she was at," Miller said. "When they were showing it, there was a woman in the background who was screaming, 'Arlene. Arlene. Are you all right?'"
Moore said emergency crews worked diligently to try to revive Arlene Page. She was transported to Strong Memorial Hospital where she was pronounced dead. The terrible truth was confirmed to the family not long after, and much of the rest of the morning was spent on the telephone to relatives.
News also spread through the neighborhood.
Christine Beam, whose daughter Ja'Lyssa is a sixth-grader at School 30, lives nearby on Santee Street and saw Page regularly. They would exchange hellos. Beam said she regards crossing guards as community grandparents who look out for the safety of the children traveling to and from school.
"It's very sad, you know," Beam said outside of School 30. "I believe it's going to have a very remorseful impact on the community because of everybody who knew her."
Daniel Aponte, who has children in fifth and first grades at School 30, and a 2-year-old son, said Arlene Page would even help him cross the street. He smiled thinking of it Tuesday. "She was good people," he said.
But Aponte and other neighbors also talked about the traffic. Sadness mixed with frustration as they spoke of cars speeding, cutting through despite the schools and day cares, and the accidents they have seen.
Police kept the Dewey-Bloss intersection closed for several hours Tuesday morning. A jacket, a broken stop-sign paddle and other debris remained in the roadway.
"She put her heart out to everything she did," Grieco said. "It's just amazing. ... How can you hit someone and keep going?"
