Since 1966, Cora Raiford had raised her five sons and looked after most everyone else in the neighborhood from her red-brick house on Kedron Street in Homewood.

Before dawn yesterday, that home was engulfed in flames, trapping Mrs. Raiford, 83, inside. She was declared dead at the scene by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's office. The cause of death was smoke inhalation.

Mrs. Raiford's son Kenny managed to get out of the burning home, but he suffered burns over 60 percent of his body. He was taken to West Penn Hospital, but his condition was unavailable yesterday.

A next-door neighbor, Antoinette Pinnick, said her family was awakened by their barking dog and evacuated their house quickly. They could only watch as Mrs. Raiford's home burned.

"You couldn't even attempt to go in," Mrs. Pinnick said as she began to weep. "You just had to stand there and listen to the screams."

The two-alarm fire, reported shortly before 5 a.m., also spread to a neighboring house, badly damaging its third floor.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Damage was estimated at $100,000, according to Fire Chief Darryl E. Jones.

Family and friends spent the morning at the grim work of retrieving all that was salvageable. Among the pictures rescued from the charred house was a shot of Mrs. Raiford wearing a proud smile in front of photos of all five of her sons in caps and gowns.

All graduated from college, including the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton, and some went on to earn advanced degrees. It was the direct result of Mrs. Raiford's emphasis on education and stern discipline.

Her second oldest son, Milton, now the headmaster at Imani Christian Academy in the East Hills, recalled how his mother would cherish the boys, telling them that "we were just like the Kennedy kids." But if they acted up, she wouldn't hesitate to correct them.

"Wherever you'd cut up, that's where she'd show up," Mr. Raiford said. "She believed that justice delayed was justice denied."

She treated the rest of the neighborhood the same way.

Roscoe Beatty, who grew up next door, called her "Miss Homewood." Any time Mr. Beatty would be hanging with the wrong crowd, Mrs. Raiford would find out about it and tell his family.

Mr. Beatty said that the drugs and violence of the neighborhood rarely touched Mrs. Raiford's block because she was so well respected.

"She was a pillar of the community," Mr. Beatty said.

One of her most significant contributions was a school for young mothers she ran out of a row house down the street. Mrs. Raiford would teach them how to cook, clean and sew, as well as how to stretch every dollar.

Assistant police Chief Maurita Bryant, who now lives a few doors down on Kedron Street, attended the homemaker school as a teenager and marveled at Mrs. Raiford's wizardry with a sewing needle. The instructor could make anything from drapes to dresses.

"There's not too many young girls who graduated from Westinghouse [High School] that she didn't do their prom dress," Chief Bryant said. "Because she used to sew beautifully."

Born in Lineville, Ala., Mrs. Raiford met the man who would become her husband, Eli Raiford, on a visit to Pittsburgh. She moved to the city in the 1940s and started a family.

Their oldest son Kenny, 56, who works at Imani Christian Academy with Milton, moved back in with his mother about three years ago after Eli Raiford had a stroke and moved into a nursing home in Shadyside.

In addition to her husband and sons Kenny and Milton, Mrs. Raiford is survived by her sons, Cornelius, of Princeton, N.J.; Billy, of Monroeville; and Kevin, of Las Vegas.

But Mrs. Raiford's family extended much further than her blood.

"If there's somebody that didn't know Cora Raiford in Homewood, it's because they just moved into the neighborhood," Chief Bryant said.

"She was a blessing, a blessing on earth."