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December 31, 2005Victim's daughters now living with grandmotherTRAVERSE CITY - The two young daughters of a local woman who died on the job at Peninsula Fruit Exchange are living with their grandmother in Texas.Jo Ann Mendoza, a longtime worker at the Peninsula Fruit Exchange, died July 12 when she fell into a wooden cherry-processing vat and drowned, leaving two elementary school-aged daughters behind. "It was a very sad thing," said Jim Krupka, the deacon of St. Joseph Church in Mapleton, where officials organized fundraisers to help with burial expenses and a fund for the children. "These were students at the Old Mission School. They were right in with the other kids." Krupka said the two girls - he did not know their ages, but guessed about 6 and 8 years old - moved to Alice, Texas, to live with their grandmother shortly after their mother's death. "As a community, we gave them the best sendoff we could," he said. "Certainly, there was enough (money raised) to take care of immediate needs." Fruit Exchange president Jim Horton said the company contributed to the fund. He declined to say how much. Investigators concluded that Mendoza fell from an overhead walkway into the vat of cherries and brine. Horton said Mendoza fell through a 2-by-3-foot opening in the top of the vat. A probe by the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration found the company lacked proper railings and failed to supply employees working around the 10-foot high vats with harnesses and other safety gear. The fruit exchange ultimately was fined $8,450. The growers and workers on Old Mission Point took Mendoza's death hard, Krupka said.
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