Ann Light Stallons -- Victim of a Night Club Fire

 

Ann Rita Light was born on December 10, 1932 in Trigg County, Kentucky, the sixth of seven children of Elzie Bertram Light and Peachie Adeline Bridges. Elzie was a farmer in the Maple Grove community where Ann and her siblings grew up.

On June 7, 1953 Ann married Marshall Wendell Stallons.  Marshall was born on January 30, 1931 in Trigg County and was the son of Clarence Monroe Stallons and Myra Dean Terrell.  His mother was the daughter of Robert Terrell and Emma Skagg Bridges, a descendant of the Simco Bridges family.

Ann and Marshall lived in Murray, Kentucky where she worked as a bookkeeper for a local accounting firm and Marshall worked with Southern Bell Telephone Company. They were the parents of two daughters, Marsha Ann Stallons who was born January 15, 1954 and Rayetta Fay Stallons who was born April 9, 1957.  Marshall died at the early age of 41 on August 3, 1972. He was buried in the Green Hill Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Hopkinsville.

Ann was a victim of a tragic fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky on May 28, 1977.  The fire which occurred on a Saturday night over Memorial Day weekend was one of the worst night club fire disasters ever in the United States at that time.

The three-story, brick-walled Beverly Hills Supper Club, was crowded with thousands of holiday weekend merrymakers when fire broke out, apparently in the basement. Most of the victims died of suffocation, although many of those trapped inside were badly burned. The building had no sprinkler system as there was no law requiring one at the time of construction in 1970 and a subsequent law was not retroactive. Property damage was estimated at $2 million at the time.   Kentucky governor Julian Carroll told a news conference the following morning that it was believed the fire started in the basement, spread there without anyone realizing it and then suddenly broke through the floor of one of the dining areas.

The patrons were scattered in dozens of rooms and alcoves at the popular nightspot located just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Many guests were finishing their dinner and preparing to walk to the Cabaret Room for a show by headliner John Davidson. Estimate of the number of patrons inside the club ranged from 3,500 to 5,000. Several waitresses in the dining area where flames were first seen tried unsuccessfully to put the fire out with portable extinguishers. . Word spread quickly for guests to leave, but thick black smoke spread even faster through the corridors blocking the main entrance entirely, making it impossible to see and ultimately choking hundreds of persons to death.  Fire trucks had difficulty reaching the scene because the club was located on an isolated 17-acre site atop a high bluff, reachable for the last quarter-mile only by a narrow two-lane road which became the site of a massive traffic jam.

When firemen arrived, they poured their energies into helping patrons escape rather than trying to douse the flames. The fire was brought under control about 1 a.m., but the rubble still smoldered as dawn broke that Sunday morning. About 125 bodies were taken to a makeshift morgue at a nearby armory and lined in rows on the floor where the dead were slowly identified by relatives and friends. In all 165 people perished in the fire.  The exact location of Ann’s body within in the building is not known.  It was determined later that the fire was apparently started by defective wiring in the walls or ceiling of the club's Zebra Room. That room apparently was added, without the fire marshal's inspection or approval, after the club was built in 1970 and allowed to open in 1971.

Ann was buried in the Green Hill Memorial Cemetery in Hopkinsville, Kentucky where her husband Marshall Stallons was buried.

 Ann Rita Light Stallons Grave Marker

LINEAGE:  (Ann Rita Light was the daughter of Elzie Bertram Light and Peachie Adeline Bridges, the granddaughter of John J. Light and Emeline Catherine Thomas and John Richard Bridges and Nancy Bell Meador and the great-granddaughter of Stanley Thomas and Emily Ann Light and Drewry Bridges and Peachie Ann Tart.   Stanley was the second child of Starkie Thomas and Mary Bridges.  Starkie was the fourth child of James Thomas and Mary Standley Thomas.  Drewry was the fourth child of William Bridges and Mary Thomas. William was the fourth child of Drury Bridges and Charity Cohoon Bridges.)