fFire
Storyf
By: Dennis D. Price © 2009
fFire Storyf
By: Dennis D. Price © 2009
I’m not sure when the fire started. I don’t
think anyone else ever figured it out, either. But the fact is our home burned
to the ground sometime around noon
on Saturday, March 26, 1955.
This tragedy had a profound effect on me and members of my family.
I am putting this story in writing because I
feel an obligation to tell the story as I am the only one left who has a memory
of some of the events that day. While my mom may have written about some of
these events in some of her papers, she and my dad are both deceased. My
siblings were too young to remember the fire. So, these things are written for
people who might be interested in knowing about this defining event in our
family. Actually, there is one other eyewitness still living. You will hear
about her in the story.
I have
vivid memories of some of the events about that day in 1955. However, some of
the things related in this story undoubtedly have come from the telling and
retelling of the fire for nearly fifty-five years now.
Before I tell about the fire, there are some
things that ought to be known about the house that was our home and the
circumstances around which it became our home. The dwelling was (at least I was
told), an approximately 100 year old farm house. Standing three stories tall,
(it had a finished, full sized attic), it was the main residence on the farm
that was owned by Mr. and Mrs. E.Z. (Edgar Zeno) and Jessie Curnutt.
While the Curnutts lived in the Greene
County seat town of Carrollton,
IL, the farm was located approximately two and a half miles west of the village of Rockbridge,
Illinois—also in Greene County.
Mrs. Curnutt’s maiden name was Achenbach. Her family owned many acres in and
around Rockbridge. One can still find “Achenbach Road” on some of the online map
programs. And when you find the Achenbach
Road intersecting with County Road, you can easily find Jesse
Achenbach Curnutt’s inheritance--a four-hundred-forty acre grain and livestock
farm, which she and her husband rented out over the years to tenant farmers.
One of those farmers was my dad, Basil Dean
Price. After growing up as the oldest of four sons on a dairy farm near Carrollton, Illinois, dad
was drafted into the United States Army in 1942 and served in the 69th
Infantry Division in Europe during World War
II. After the war, he returned to Carrollton, Illinois, and to his high school sweetheart, Agnes Louisa
Robinson, also from Carrollton.
I don’t think they were formally engaged until after the war was over. What I
do know is that they were married on Sunday afternoon, August 11, 1946, in the bride’s home
on North Main Street
in Carrollton.
They moved into a tenant house on my Grandpa and Grandma’s farm for a few
months until they found a farm of their own. (Most all of my ancestors on both
sides of the family were farmers. It was a natural step for my dad to be
looking for a place to also be engaged in farming.)
When my dad applied to rent the farm near
Rockbridge from the Curnutts, he found out that several other farmers—most of
them much more experienced farmers—had also applied to rent the property, too.
Since my dad was only 24 years old at the time, it was surprising that he was
chosen to be the renter. However, since he was so young, there was a condition
that Mr. Curnutt placed upon his selection. That condition was that his dad, my
Grandpa, Othel Price, was to be a partner in the farming operation. So that’s
what happened. On March 1,
1947, my mom and dad moved into the farm house on the Curnutt farm
and my dad and his dad and my Uncle Dub (George Washington Price—my dad’s
brother) farmed the land.
Most all the members of my family who farm
were and are competent and effective. Consequently, it didn’t take long for Mr.
Curnutt to see that my dad excelled in farming. After the first year, Mr.
Curnutt said it was not necessary for my grandpa to be a partner. So for the
next twenty years, my dad was a faithful steward of Mr. and Mrs. Curnutt’s
farm. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Both men respected each other
and Mr. Curnutt would often respond to my dad’s ideas to improve the farming
operation with this comment: “Go ahead and do it, Basil. I’ve learned what’s
good for you, will be good for me.”
After 20 years of renting the farm, my dad
and mom bought 280 acres of this farm in 1967 and continued to rent the other
160 acres.
I am going to fast forward the story a bit
and tell about the circumstances around the purchase of the farm. My mom and dad had no idea Mr. Curnutt was
thinking about selling a majority of his farm. They did notice that even though
the Curnutts were aging (Mr. Curnutt was 93 in 1967), they were investing in
some major farm improvements. My parents had remarked to one another how
unusual that was at this stage in their landlord’s life and wondered what was
going on. Mr. Curnutt had contracted with a company to dig a new well, he had
the big barn painted, and had done several other things to spruce up the farm
and the house. After all that was finished, Mr. Curnutt called my dad to come
and talk to him. At that meeting, Mr. Curnutt reiterated all of the
improvements he had made and then he said, “Now, Basil, I want you to buy it.
And if you need me to, I will even loan you the money to do it!”
He bought it. A faithful journey that began
with being selected to be a tenant resulted in my dad becoming the owner! The
farm is still in the family.
I always loved hearing the story of how Mr.
Curnutt chose the young veteran to tend his farm. I was and am proud. I never
tired of hearing this story and would often ask my mom to retell it. Perhaps
I’m writing it down so in a sense I can hear it again and again as I read it!
So that’s how the old house became our home
and the farm became our life. And this old house became home to me, Dennis
Dean, the first born, in 1950. And it became home to my brother Gregory Basil
in 1952 and my sister Debra Ann in 1953.
f
Spring came early in 1955. At least it seemed
like it did. After the devastating hot, dry summer of 1954 when many of the
crops were burned up in a hot wind that blew through the area (a few of those
days in July, 1954, still hold the record high temperature for this part of the
mid-west), farm families welcomed the warm spring days in March. Everyone hoped
for a better year.
It certainly was a promising spring and some
warm days in March caused many people, including my parents, to plant gardens
and fields. According to the National Weather Service (St. Louis, MO)
data, March 10, 1955,
still holds the record for the high temperature for a March 10th – 86 degrees
Fahrenheit. Even though it might have been early for some crops or garden
produce to be planted, it certainly didn’t feel like it. I’m not sure about any
of the fields, but I do know the garden on our farm was already planted well
before March 26, 1955.
If the first few days of March were lamb-like, the proverbial lion-like days
showed up toward the end of the month! March 25 and March 26 and March 27, 1955, each hold
the low temperature records on the St
Louis, MO National
Weather Service Database. The low temperatures were 11, 5, 15 degrees
respectively. It’s hard to believe that the coldest March 26 day ever recorded
(1837-2009) happened in 1955: (low 5; high 21). To date, those records have not
been broken.
On that record cold day, we lost our home.
f
March 26, 1955, fell on a
Saturday. My mom, my brother, my sister and I were in the living room of the
house. Our neighbor’s daughter, Donna, was also staying with us. Donna Lewis’
mom and dad, Margaret and Paul had gone somewhere for the day and did not want
to leave their daughter at home by herself. It was such a cold day, and stoves
and furnaces were working overtime. They were afraid that their house might
catch fire. Ironically, Donna was left to be safe with us!
The Lewis’ were good friends. Mrs. Lewis
helped my mom with the house cleaning and other household chores. Paul (I’m not
sure why we called them Mrs. Lewis and Paul—but we did!) was a hired hand on a
neighboring farm. Donna was sixteen and a student at Greenfield High School.
A couple years later, when her parents moved to Franklin, Illinois,
Donna stayed with our family for about six months while she finished high
school. She is the other person still alive who remembers the fire. Donna and I
have recently had a couple of conversations about this fire story.
Here’s what I remember about that morning.
The television was on. One show I remember watching that day was “The Pinky Lee
Show.” My mom was lying on the couch with the flu or a bad cold. That might
have explained why she didn’t smell the smoke. But I did. I remember telling my
mom that I smelled smoke and I asked her where it was coming from. Her response
was that dad and his brother, my Uncle John, who was working for my dad at the
time, must be burning something outside.
Not too much later my dad came into the house
to help get lunch ready since my mom was not feeling well.
f
On that day her illness evidently was
something temporary. However, my mom did have some type of heart condition that
she was dealing with in her thirties and at one point wasn’t sure she would
live long enough for all of us to remember her. There is one picture that we
have that was professionally taken of my mom for this reason: that if she died,
we would know what she looked like.
In later years my mom told me that during that
time my dad—no matter where he was working on the farm—would always come to the
house in the mid afternoon for a few minutes. After her health returned and all
of us children were older, he finally confessed to her that the reason he came
to the house every day was that he didn’t want any of us to come home from
school and find her dead. It’s probably a good thing he kept that to himself
for as long as he did!
On a few occasions when my mom was in the
hospital (we celebrated her 40th birthday in a hospital room at Boyd Memorial
Hospital in Carrollton, IL.
My grandma made the cake for her and my brother made sure there were exactly 40
candles on it!), my dad ran the house like he was back in the army. We all had
jobs to do and inspections were held before school each day. It was way more
regimented than when my mom was “in charge.” In spite of those health problems
in her younger years, by God’s’ grace, she lived a relatively healthy life until
she died at age 87 years, outliving my dad by nearly twenty years.
f
When
my dad entered the house to get ready to fix some lunch for us, he immediately noticed
a smoky haze in the rooms and as he made his way toward the living room he asked
where the smoke was coming from. He opened the basement door to check. The smoke
and flames almost overwhelmed him. He told my mom to call the fire department
and he and Donna grabbed all three of us and took us to the car. My mom called
the fire department.
At that time, Mrs. Ross Newton was the local
telephone operator who worked out of her home in Rockbridge. I was always
fascinated to learn that after my mom’s call to the fire department was made,
Mrs. Newton -- I’m not exactly sure how she did it -- opened up all the lines
on the exchange. This caused all of the phones in Rockbridge to ring, and then
she made this announcement to the people: “Basil Price’s house is burning.”
People say the tools of communication are better now than then. I don’t know.
At least in this case, communication seemed pretty high-tech to me! This
simple, effective announcement resulted in many people showing up at the scene
of the fire fairly quickly.
f
Another
story about our operator, Mrs. Newton: when my sister was a baby, she developed
a high fever and went into a convulsion because of it. My mom had never
experienced anything like that before and at one point, as my sister became totally
limp and unresponsive, my mom thought Debbie had died. My dad assured her she
hadn’t. My mom called the doctor. I don’t know if she ever actually talked to
the doctor or maybe it was a few minutes before he could be found. In any case,
Mrs. Newton, the 911 forerunner, told my mom what to do: put her in warm water
and wash her face in cold water (or maybe it was the other way around.)
Whichever way it was, my sister regained consciousness and was on the road to
recovery. My mom and dad were always grateful for Mrs. Newton. She was a hero.
Mayberry’s operator, Sarah, probably could have learned something from our Mrs.
Newton!
f
After notifying the fire department via our
hometown operator, my mom got a few clothes out of the hall closet and then
left the house. My dad went to the
dining room and pulled out a drawer from the dining room buffet which contained
some insurance policies and some other valuable papers. Then he left the house.
A little bit later when some neighbors had come to our aid, a few of them
wanted to go in and get more things as the house was burning. My dad begged
them not to, but they did manage to get a bedroom suite out of one of the
rooms. Besides those few things, everything that we had went up in smoke. And
it didn’t take long, either. Within a few minutes after retrieving the bedroom
furniture, the house caved in and everything was lost. In the meantime, the
fire truck had arrived, but could not save any of the structure.
My Uncle John had driven us an eighth of a
mile or so to our tenant house where he and his family lived. I remember
watching him run back to the burning house. I either saw this or I was told a
thousand times that Uncle John didn’t stop to climb the fence that separated
the two houses. He just jumped over it!
I
do know that I wanted to watch the fire from the tenant house and I was
actually standing at a window watching it when our neighbor came along
(everyone was gathering quickly to help!) and pulled the shade down so I
couldn’t see anything. I still am a bit upset with her for doing that. She
thought I would be upset if I saw it! Maybe I’ll get over her doing that to me
someday.
But
as for the affect of the fire on our family, (at least on me) we never got over
it. That statement sounds negative. There certainly were a lot of negative
things about the fire, but there were also some positive aspects of it.
I want to share a few things about the fire
and some subsequent events surrounding the fire that have made an impact on me —
some lessons, so to speak for which I am grateful.
fLesson 1f
Providence
In
a word, the first lesson is providence. The Providence of God. Some people might describe
these moments of grace as just coincidences or good fortune. But I believe the
Providence of God played a role in our experience on March 26, 1955. The dictionary says
that providence is “the foreseeing care and guidance of God over the
creatures of the earth.” For the
fifty some years my mom told about the events of the day, she would always say
that if she had not been sick and therefore if my dad had not come in to fix
lunch at that particular time, we may not have discovered or been able to react
in time to escape the fire. And if she had finally discovered the fire, she
would have tried to take the time to put coats and snowsuits on each one of us.
She was appalled at first that my dad took us out in nearly zero weather
without any coats or hats or gloves, but she soon realized that to do otherwise
would have been potentially tragic. Our family experienced that day the
“foreseeing care and guidance of God.”
fLesson 2f
Life
At one point after the fire, the reality of
losing virtually everything was sinking in to my mom and dad. My mom said she
was crying about what they were going to do. She said something about what her babies
were going to do now that everything they had was destroyed. My dad responded,
“But we have our babies.”
That simple statement reminded them both that
life was the most important thing about this day. And we all came out of this
alive. Two adults, a teenager and three children all under 5 were alive! What
else mattered?
fLesson 3f
Materialism
With the exception of the clothes all of us
were wearing, a few things from the closet and a bedroom suite, nothing was
saved from the fire. That night and the next few nights we spent at my Grandma
and Grandpa’s house. There was nothing to pack up to go there. We had
nothing…”not even toothbrushes,” I heard my mom say on many occasions.
When
you know that accumulated material things can vanish in a matter of minutes, the
teaching of Jesus becomes real: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where
moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where
thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19-20)
Jesus
didn’t say anything about fire, but the effect is the same, perhaps even more
dramatic. The fire destroyed things very quickly with no time to conserve
and/or protect. In a recent conversation with Donna Lewis Hasse, the other
remaining eyewitness, she talked about how quickly the house and everything
left in it was destroyed.
My
mom confessed that before the fire she was very proud of what she had and what
had been accumulated in their early years of marriage. After the fire, she put
things in their proper perspective. That value was talked about a lot and
handed down to all of us. Remembering the fire and hearing the story reminded
us just how very temporary “things” can be. We were encouraged to store up our
treasures where Jesus taught us to keep them.
fLesson 4f
Giving
Most
everything that we had – from toothbrushes to furniture – could be and were
replaced eventually. However, some things were destroyed that we certainly
thought could not be replaced. Family pictures fell into the “irreplaceable”
category. So we thought.
After
the fire, some of the extended family members gave us back some of the pictures
of our family that we had given them previously. My mom and dad had given away
copies of the pictures to great aunts and uncles, great grandparents, and other
members of the family. And then as the years went by, and some of those people
had died, many of those pictures came back to us. Giving away the pictures
proved to be the key to really being able to possess them again. Sharing those
“irreplaceable” pictures allowed us to “replace” them!
Evidently
this was not 100% effective. My mom told about some pictures taken of the three
of us kids that were so good and cute that she decided that she wasn’t going to
give any of them away. She wanted to keep them to herself. Of course, those
pictures all burned up in the fire. And of course, there was no way to get
copies back because they weren’t shared with anyone else. Nobody knows what
those pictures looked like. I’m sure they were great! But we will never know.
The
lesson in all this is that the only “pre-fire” pictures we really had were the
ones that had been given away! In a real sense, what we “have” is only that
which we have been willing to give.
fLesson 5f
Generosity
Another
lesson related to the last one is that we learned that people are generous.
After spending a week at my grandparent’s we were given a house to live in
temporarily. It was a house that belonged to a neighbor, Mr. Harlan Edwards. Whenever
the story was told of the fire, it would always include the fact that Mr.
Edwards let us live in his tenant house rent free. I think my dad tried to pay
him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. So for a few months, while a new house was
being built on the site of the old one, we lived a couple of miles away in this
generous gift.
In
addition, a “shower” was held at our church in Rockbridge. And the generosity
of many people made it possible for us to begin to experience some normalcy
again.
That
spirit of generosity, the spirit of community is something for which to give
thanks to God.
fLesson 6f
Home
While
we were grateful for a house in which to live, that house was not home. A
couple of things were told about the time of living in the Edwards’ house that
indicates the longing for home is something that is with us from the earliest
days of our lives.
These
stories involve my brother and sister. My sister (18 months old at the time)
was “just not herself” my mom always said. She wouldn’t get down on the floor
to play. She wanted to always be held. She was just not satisfied. My parents
thought that maybe if they took her over to where the old house stood it would
somehow help. My mom said that Debbie was so excited as they approached the
farm and that she could hardly contain her excitement when they turned down the
lane. But then when she saw that the house was not there, it was obvious that
she knew something was wrong. While we have no idea what was going on in her
mind, after she realized “home” was no longer where she thought it was, she
became more content. She didn’t need to be held as much. She started to play
again.
The
set of clothes that my brother (almost three at the time of the fire) had on
when the house burned were the only familiar clothes that he had. Because of
the generosity of people, a lot of other clothes had been given to him and to
all of us for that matter.
My
brother wore the new clothes that he had received, but when the “survivor”
clothes were laid out for him to wear, he was excited! They were like “home” to
him. If he had his way, he would have worn them all the time.
As
we mature, we realize that “home” is not buildings or clothes, but there’s
something ingrained in us—even before we can articulate it -- about home and
the longing to experience and participate in it.
fLesson 7f
Restart
At
first, my mom and dad didn’t know whether our landlords, the Curnutts, would
want to rebuild. After all, the Curnutts were getting older. Mr. Curnutt was
eighty-one at the time of the fire. The house that burned really belonged to
them. They sustained the loss of property. Would they rebuild? Would they start
over?
That
question was answered pretty quickly. They did rebuild. They had a spirit of
adventure about them that caused them to press forward. That spirit was not
just evident in the decision to rebuild, but in other ways as well. I remember
that Mr. Curnutt bought a new Oldsmobile several years later when he was in his
mid nineties. And his only regret was that he didn’t get the top of the line
model. It didn’t have all the “bells and whistles” that he had had in other
vehicles! (Mr. Curnutt lived to be over 100 years old—I can’t find the year of
his death.)
So
a new house was built. Our landlord even listened to a couple of ideas my mom hesitantly
suggested about the house and incorporated those ideas into the plan.
We
were able to begin again. A big reason we were able to do that was because the
Curnutt’s looked to the future and all the possibilities that it held.
One
other thought about this. In all of the conversations about the fire, I never heard
anyone talk about blame. While the whole event was traumatic, it was made
easier by the mutual respect of the landlord and tenant family.
fLesson 8f
Perspective
As
you can tell by now, the fire was a big deal for me and my family. I’ve always
wondered what the newspapers reported about the fire at the time. It seems
nowadays that house fires of this magnitude are often on the evening news and
reported in newspapers or on the internet.
So
a couple of years ago I spent an afternoon in the Carrollton, Illinois,
library to see what the local newspaper said about it. I found two articles in
the paper. One was an item in the column “Greenfield News”; the other was an
item in the column “Rockbridge News”:
“The
Rockbridge and Greenfield
firemen were called Saturday morning to the farm home of Mr. and Mrs. Basil
Price and family, two and one-half miles west of Rockbridge, where fire of
undetermined origin destroyed their home. All members of the family were at
home when the blaze was discovered in the basement between 10 and 11 a.m., but it had gained such
headway that they were unable to check the blaze. Most of their clothing and
furniture were destroyed. The damage to the building, owned by E.Z. Curnutt of Carrollton was not
estimated. Members of the Price family are staying with relatives.”
f
“Fire
destroyed the Zeno Curnutt farm residence west of Rockbridge Saturday, occupied
by Mr. and Mrs. Basil Price and three small children. The house was totally
destroyed and the family lost all furniture and possessions. Friday night a
shower was given for the Price family at the Methodist church in Rockbridge.
The Price family are residing with relatives.”
That’s it. I was amazed that something so
major to me was summed up in a couple of paragraphs buried in news columns that
also contained who ate Sunday dinner with whom and who came to visit later in
the afternoon! (These kinds of items are typical small town newspaper “news.”)
Our
fire did not even have a headline of its own. No pictures. No quotes. I was
shocked.
Isn’t
it true, though, that we sometimes think that the entire world revolves around
us. We forget that others are dealing with their own crisis situations and
their own experiences.
Maybe
another lesson the fire teaches me is to be aware of those experiences of
others that affect them as deeply as the fire affected me.
For most people in the world (and evidently
even in Greene County) our fire did not get top
billing. I think it should have! I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
fLesson 9f
Scars
After several years, there were a couple of
things that still reminded me and others of the fire. Once in a while I would
be mowing weeds in one of our pastures or moving cattle in that pasture when I
would see the place where some of the debris from the fire was dumped. Mostly
what I saw was a set of concrete steps from the old house that had been taken
there. That sight always reminded me of the events in this story. That was one
thing.
The other was that for many years a maple
tree that was in our front yard was permanently scarred. Up and down the trunk
was an obvious, deep scar. It was a wonder that the tree survived. I know the
trees on the east side of the house were destroyed in the fire, but this
particular one on the west was just scarred.
Sometimes as we sat in the yard in the summer
(before air conditioning!), someone who was visiting with us might ask why the
maple tree looked the way it did. Then the fire story would be told again. For
many years the scarred tree reminded me of the fire and of some the lessons
that I have written about.
Fortunately, there were not other scars from
the fire. There easily could have been. Maybe that tree and its scar was a
reminder of the grace of God. It was a reminder that even though scarred, it
continued to live and provide cool shade and enjoyment on a hot day. And it was
a reminder that the joy of life has been experienced by all of us in the house
that day. Yes life has its scars, and its troubles, but we are to take heart,
Jesus who was scarred himself on a tree has overcome those troubles.
fLesson 10f
Calling
In one of the articles about the fire from
the newspapers referred to above, it mentioned that a shower was held for our
family at the Methodist
Church in Rockbridge.
That church has been a part of our family for a long time. We still have
connections to it. Times of spiritual growth have been experienced in that
church. Many of its pastors have had major influences on our family. A couple
of particular pastors have had a major influence on me. One of them, Rev. John
Seed, was pastor there when I was in the membership class. I remember that he
said to me after one of the classes, “Dennis, I think God has something special
for you to do.” I can still hear him say it.
Another pastor, Rev. Leroy Sanders, was my pastor
in high school when I responded to God’s call to preach. Rev. Sanders invited
me to deliver my first sermon a couple of months after I graduated from high
school. And he was there to listen to it, and to encourage me, too!
I was interested to find out later that the
founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, had a similar experience as
mine. When he was about six, his family’s house in England burned to the ground, too.
At the last minute, John was pulled from the burning parsonage. He regarded
himself from then on as a “brand plucked from the burning.” That experience, at
least in part, motivated him to discover what it was that God wanted him to be
and do.
Now I’m not suggesting that I’m equal to John
Wesley, but I think subconsciously and maybe even sometimes consciously I
wonder if I might also be one who was spared from “the burning” for God’s
purpose. It has felt like that. It continues to feel like that. I think it was
one of the experiences that contributed to my calling to be a pastor in this
“Methodist movement” for the past thirty-nine years.
f
So
that’s the story. I share it as best as I remember or have been told. I give
God thanks for this “Fire Story.”
I found this information about the Curnutts on a
history of Greene
County website. They were
remarkable people.
E. Z. CURNUTT. On the roster of public officials in Greene county
appears the name of E. Z. Curnutt, who is now serving as circuit clerk. He was
born in the town of Wrightsville,
on the 17th of February,
1874, and is a son of James H. and Angelina (Waltrip) Curnutt, both
of whom were also natives of Wrightsville. In the district schools the son
began his education at the usual age and was advanced through successive grades
until he became a high school student in Greenfield.
Later he attended the high school in Carrollton,
and was graduated with the class of 1893. On putting aside his text books he
entered his father's store in Carrollton,
where he remained until 1900. He had, however, been engaged in teaching from
1893 until 1896, having charge of the Rubicon school in the eastern part of
Greene county. In 1900 he received the nomination of the Democratic party for
the office of circuit clerk and that he was the choice of the public is shown
by the fact that he received a good majority at the fall election. His capable
service received public endorsement by a second nomination for the office and
election in 1904, when he received the largest majority of any candidate on the
ticket.
