For months, David Swayne didn’t feel the need to speak publicly about his sister’s death.
It was by no means a secret — friends shared memories of her on Facebook and family gathered to honor her life last spring — but he and his brother decided to avoid the media spectacle that surrounded victims of last January’s devastating Eaton fire.
But as the one-year anniversary of the deadly firestorms approached, Swayne started to feel as though the memory of his sister, Lora Swayne, was becoming an afterthought. He worried that the lives lost — a total of 31 in the dual disasters that forever changed Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Malibu — are being forgotten amid a growing focus on the future.
“I feel like the only time they’re remembered is when they’re forced to remember them,” said David Swayne, 66. “The main focus is rebuilding a house, getting back in, cleaning a house, getting back in.”
As a lifelong Altadenan, Swayne regularly bears witness to the unimaginable devastation across his community, and understands how painful the loss of homes, businesses, prized possessions and family heirlooms can be. His family’s home luckily survived the blaze.
“Everybody lost something that they can never get back, but they can replace what they lost,” Swayne said as tears filled his eyes. “I can’t replace what I lost.”
It’s been particularly painful learning about candlelight vigils or events meant to honor fire victims, he said, without any invitation for families to participate.
“A lot of the people who lost loved ones, they aren’t being represented anywhere,” he said.
At a massive commemoration marking the anniversary of the Eaton fire this week, local religious leaders read the names of the 19 people who died in the blaze.
From the back of the crowded Grocery Outlet parking lot, David Swayne heard a pastor he didn’t know mispronounce his sister’s name.
It only compounded the pain that gnaws at him.
His sister deserves for their community to remember her life accurately, fully and respectfully, he said.
Lora Swayne, 71, was a lifelong resident of the unincorporated town, spending most of her life in west Altadena where her parents settled in the 1960s — part of a wave of new homeowners who helped form a thriving Black community. She was the eldest of three, and easily fell into her role as a protective, but fun, older sister, David said.
She went on to graduate from Pitzer College and worked at Cathay Bank for most of her professional life until she recently retired, her brother said. She bought her own home in west Altadena on East Las Flores Drive, where she raised her only son, not far from her parents and David’s family’s home. She was an avid reader, loved to dance, and was a devoted single mother.
“She loved Altadena, she loved Pasadena,” David said. She had often volunteered at her son’s school and with local youth organizations, and become a beloved mentor at work.
“Whenever she did anything, she did it 110%,” David said.
David said he and his sister didn’t always get along, but they remained close, working together to help care for their parents in their final years and getting their families together for holidays.
“She was a very giving person,” he said.
David Swayne doesn’t know exactly what happened to his sister the night of the fire. He texted her shortly after the fire ignited on Jan. 7, 2025, and asked if she’d received an evacuation alert. She responded at around 9:30 p.m. that she hadn’t.
That was the last he heard from her.
He later found out other family members and friends had been in touch and encouraged her to evacuate, but she had apparently told them she didn’t plan to leave. She had recently had surgery that limited her mobility, David Swayne said, though he wasn’t sure if that played a factor.
According to her missing person’s report, Lora Swayne’s last contact with family was at 3:42 a.m. — just minutes after Los Angeles County ordered west Altadena to evacuate. That order came hours after flames and smoke began threatening the area.
Her body was later found among her home’s rubble, Swayne said.
“Ever since then, it’s just been missing her,” he said.
He wishes she would have reached out to him that night, but he thinks she probably had some reason not to — perhaps to protect him, he said.
“I would have probably driven up there, maybe put my life in danger,” he said, shaking his head.
Swayne and his family have filed a lawsuit against Southern California Edison on behalf of Lora’s estate. While the cause of the Eaton fire has not yet been confirmed, evidence points to Edison power equipment.
Swayne does, however, feel some peace knowing Lora is reunited with her son and parents, who all preceded her in death.
“She loved her son with all her heart — that was her whole world,” he said. “She can be with her son, and her mother and father.”
The post A year after Eaton fire, Altadena man fights to honor late sister’s memory. ‘Can’t replace what I lost’ appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
