Widow of Ward Bond Dies in House Fire

SAN DIEGO — The 73-year-old widow of actor Ward Bond, star of the long-running television series “Wagon Train,” died in a fire Thursday in her Vista home, where she apparently had been smoking in bed, authorities said.

Mary Lou Bond was Ward Bond’s secretary and business manager when they married in 1954. He died in 1960. Her current husband, John Diggs, 77, was hospitalized for minor burns.

Diggs, who was awakened by smoke and unable to lift his invalid wife, called firefighters. Diggs told firefighters that his wife had been smoking in bed earlier that night.