Former Board of Health secretary for Wareham, 86-year-old Eleanor Willett, has been identified as one of ten victims of the Gabriel House Assisted Living Facility fire.

The blaze began at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, July 13 and is still currently under investigation. Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon stated that preliminary findings traced the fire’s origin to a single resident’s room on the second-floor of the south wing.

“This is an unfathomable tragedy for the families involved and the Fall River community,” said Chief Bacon. “On behalf of the Fall River Fire Department, I want to express our heartfelt condolences to the loved ones who are grieving this morning.”

According to the Boston Globe, Willett chose to live at Gabriel House after suffering a few falls, forgetting to turn off the stove a few times and losing the ability to climb stairs. She chose a room on the main floor near the nurse’s station, the front desk and the dining room.

It was the “safest situation for her,” Willet's granddaughter Holly Mallowes told the Boston Globe.

In her late 40s, Willett earned a college degree to advance her career at the local health department, Mallowes said. Willet raised five children and worked for 15 years as a secretary for the Board of Health in Wareham and earned a college degree to advance her career at the local health department, Mallowes said.

She’d outlived both of her husbands and two of her sons, one of whom died in a car crash in the 1980s. Another son died by suicide, family told the Boston Globe. 

“Anything she went through, any tragedy, she came back even stronger,” Mallowes said to the Boston Globe.

Terry Leuvelink, Willett’s daughter, visited at least every other day, Mallowes told the Boston Globe.

“She was so close to my grandmother,” she said. “Like that was her heart.”