Friday, December 20, 2002, dawned bright, clear, and cold. There wasn’t much snow for being right before Christmas...sort of like this year. In fact, we had just put up our Christmas tree two nights before...during a thunderstorm.
Captain got up at 5 a.m. like every other morning. He started the coffee and stoked the big old Blaze King wood stove in the living room like every other morning. He went off to milk like every other morning.
I got up an hour later to a warm house, had a cup of coffee, and got ready for work like every other morning. I got the kids up and fed them breakfast like every other morning, and got them off to their last half-day before Christmas break. I finished getting ready and headed to work like every other morning.
Little did any of us know this morning wasn’t like any other morning in our lives.
Being the Friday before Christmas, our office was having a little holiday gathering in the break room which just happened to be ten steps down from my desk so I was back and forth all morning from work to food and back again.
Mid morning, I had to run from the little party to answer my phone. It was Captain.
Have you ever gotten a phone call and the person on the other end says your name? Just your name, but in such a tone that you know whatever comes after it is going to be a life-changer? Yeah, that’s how Captain sounded that day.
“Jude, you have to come home. The house is on fire.”
From that moment until much later in the day, I’m sort of fuzzy on details because I went on auto pilot. I went to find my supervisor and tell her I was leaving. She was away from her desk so I told...someone else. I don’t even remember who. I remember breaking down in sobs before I could even put my coat on and grab my purse.
I was parked about three blocks away, and by the time I got to my van I had convinced myself it wasn’t as serious as Captain made it out to be. It was just a chimney fire and we were going to have to replace some shingles...that was all.
Our house sits up on a hill and when I came around the last curve in the valley before heading up the hill, I saw a thick blanket of smoke laying over the entire valley.
And I knew it absolutely was as bad as Captain made it out to be.
The Pine Island Fire Department was already on scene. They were actually here when Captain came home from chores at the main farm near Mantorville. When I drove up to the house, I couldn’t find Captain at first. I did find our neighbor, Lori Weis, who had come to see what she could do to help. She pointed out Captain to me, and then she told me she was going to call the school and have them pull our kids off the bus so they didn’t drive home to complete and utter chaos. Our kids have said every year on this date…”Thank God for Lori Weis.” I’ll second that.
After a thorough investigation by the fire marshal, it was determined that the pipe that went from the stove, through the wall, and into the chimney had sprung a hole and an ember stirred up when Captain stoked the stove ended up in the studs between the interior and exterior walls to smolder in the insulation. Because our house wasn’t a full two stories, but 1-½ stories, the full length of each side of the “upstairs” was crawl space...nothing but air...and when the flames got to that level and caught that air, the fire shot across the house and consumed everything in its path.
Except the flag that waves just mere inches from the flames. We still have that flag, folded and displayed in a case made by my cousin, Wes. There is also a scorched dinner plate from the old house, a broken coffee cup, and three $1 bills that were given to us by some elderly neighbors who could scare afford to do so.
I don’t share this to create sympathy or make anyone feel sorry for us. In fact, the complete opposite. I share this story so that I can let you know that people are inherently good and kind and helpful, and how thankful we are to live in rural America, in a small community, because within an hour or just a little more from the fire, we had family, friends, and neighbors offering anything and everything that we might need.
From Lori Weis thinking of our kids to Matt Kennedy stopping by with a pair of boots for Captain (which he still wears to this day, 13 years later, I might add), to the local restaurant offering to be a drop off center for donations.
That kind of selfless giving, that “love thy neighbor” attitude, that absolute and sincere caring is what small town life is all about. They care.
We don’t know everybody who did what they could to ease our lives in those days and weeks following the fire. But we thank God for each and every one of them every year on this day.
When we lie down at night on this day each year, we say a special prayer for firefighters everywhere to be safe on their jobs. We say a prayer of thanks that we live in a place where neighbors helping neighbors isn’t a phenomenon...it’s the norm. And we say a prayer that we will always find a way to help others in need as we can.
The message below was from us to our community after the fire. We meant it then, we mean it now, and we will mean it every day forever.
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