3.20.2003
Charline E. Gingras-Fick, 35; 'a tom boy from day one'
Charline Elaine Gingras-Fick was not just a professional dog groomer.
She was also a Gulf War veteran.
So, even when the dog was a real-life "Cujo" -- the rabid St.
Bernard in the Stephen King novel -- Charline wouldn't hesitate to give
it a bath or shampoo, or trim its toenails, said Tarah James, a coworker
at the Petco store in South Attleboro.
"She got bit. She got bit several times," said Charline's mother,
Lorraine (Paquette) Desrochers.
Was she discouraged? "Are you kidding?" Desrochers said. "She
couldn't wait to go to work."
Charline was one of four children of Edward G. Gingras, who lives in
Bellingham, Mass., and Desrochers, who remarried after she and Edward
Gingras divorced.
She rode a motorcycle at age 14, brought home stray animals while she
was growing up in Pawtucket, and went to William M. Davies Jr. Career
and Technical High School in Lincoln, where she learned cabinet-making.
In 1988, a year after she finished at the Pedigree Professional School
of Dog Grooming in Lynn, Mass., she enlisted in the Army and became a
diesel mechanic.
"In other words," said Desrochers, "she was a tomboy from
day one."
Specialist Gingras took part in Operation Desert Storm, repairing Jeeps,
trucks and Humvees.
While she was in the Army, she married another soldier, Larry Fick, of
Merrill, Mich. After they divorced, she and Fick agreed to share in the
upbringing of their two children, Samantha, 12, and William, 10. Each
parent would have custody for seven years.
In 1995, Charline moved back to Rhode Island and went into the dog-grooming
business. She bought a two-family house in Central Falls and had her mother
and stepfather, Henry D. Desrochers, move in downstairs so the children
would have someone to look after them while she was working.
Samantha and William have been back with their father since September.
Charline worked the 1 to 9 p.m. shift at Petco that Thursday night, then
went with a friend to The Station. She wasn't in the nightclub more than
five minutes, Desrochers said, when the fire broke out.
-- John Castellucci
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