Congregation Mourns Beloved Couple Killed In Crash In Front Of Fort Worth Church
(CBSDFW.COM) - Forty-six years ago, Lorena Jordan brought her new husband Thomas to Grace Lutheran Church in Fort Worth. Decades later, they were still there.
She directed the choir, and he was in charge of the annual fall festival. Pastor Don Strickland said they were pillars of the congregation.
On Sunday, as they were turning left to pull into church for Sunday services, the Jordans' car was hit by a vehicle speeding in the opposite direction. They were killed in the collision, with much of the congregation witnesses to the wreckage.
It was the second fatal wreck in five weeks at the intersection of McCart and Columbus and in front of the church.
Twenty-two-year-old Keenan Hilsabeck died there in October after police said one of two cars racing on McCart slammed into the car Hilsabeck was riding in.
Police said on Monday there had been 11 accidents at the intersection over the last two years. The latest one took the lives of two people who had given much of their lives to their church.
"She poured her heart and soul into the choir," Price Jordan said of his mother.
As a musician who always had a song in her head according to her children, Lorena had played piano and organ for the congregation and directed bell and vocal choirs.
She had been diagnosed with breast cancer this year. But after the scare she was starting to show signs of recovery.
"She was getting to where she was going to be in pretty good health again," said daughter Britta Brady-Mize.
Thomas Jordan, after a career as an engineer, had taken up photography as a new business. He was the one the church counted on for extensive planning of its annual fall festival.
Price said he's also already starting to hear from neighbors impacted by his father's outgoing nature around the community.
"He said 'Your dad came by and talked to my kids every day on his walk. Going to be rough not seeing him,'" he said.
The church is expecting a large crowd for the funeral later this week. There has already been some discussion of addressing safety at the intersection, in the wake of the latest deaths.
"My mom was my rock," Britta said. "She kept me grounded, she kept me sane, she kept me going. She was my best friend, and I don't know who I'm going to make it without her."
