A Pastor, a School Bus and a Trip Through a Scorched Oregon Town

Everyone looked in somber silence for a moment. Below, two people rummaged by a hole where a home used to be.

Daniel Verner was searching for the box that held the

ashes of his wife. She had died of cancer 11 months earlier, a tragedy that led him to leave Ashland for a new home in Talent. Now his wife’s Honda Accord was melted to the pavement out front, and he could not find her ashes.

Mr. Verner, 74, is a painter and musician, specializing in portraits and traditional folk music from around the world. He plays 15 instruments, and was angry with himself for grabbing only two when the police told him to flee. “I got my Greek bouzouki and my Irish bouzouki, but I didn’t get my Russian balalaika or my Turkish oud,” he said.

He was shaken up by the scene. “There’s still some part of my psyche that just goes into not believing,” he said. “I wish I would have grabbed some more. A few more.”

He was with Cherie Grubbs, 64, a retired nurse and his next-door neighbor. She was searching the rubble for mementos of her son, who was murdered in 2011, such as his guitar or Mother’s Day cards. Instead, she salvaged a lantern that her father had used as a signaler for the railroad, but not much else.

Mr. Verner cut his hand on the rubble, and they decided to go to the hospital for a tetanus shot. They had hiked in a mile, so Mr. Gregory agreed that they needed a lift. While walking, Mr. Verner and Ms. Grubbs said they were in a relationship, forged by heartache.

“We kind of shared this incredible, unbearable grief,” she said. “We kind of thought we paid our grief dues.”