Things happen that trigger memories, good things and bad.  Last week’s fire near our home brought back memories sometimes too hard to believe.

Fires can destroy everything. As we saw the smoke, Skip asked if it brought back memories. Fire can take lives but lucky for the Vogel family and ours it spared us. In the blink of an eye, however, your life can be changed. Everything you worked for, gone. Keepsakes turned into ashes. A few days, months and years later you’ll go to get something only to remember it was lost in the fire.

Our house lovingly known as The Old Hotel was a part of Gwynn’s Island. For years it housed families during summers or year around. It had two apartments on the second floor and at times we rented the main floor, keeping an apartment upstairs for ourselves.

For years we lived in the winter close to Daddy’s jobs. Our family lived in Portsmouth, Norfolk and Virginia Beach during the cold season but always headed to The Old Hotel during holidays and summers. In 1963 we moved home for good. Daddy, Capt. David Hodges, was working hard on his days off, getting things done around the house and with one that big there was always something to do. He loved his home so much. But come May 1964, our whole life changed.

It was a warm afternoon, beautiful outside. Showers loomed overhead but held off for a while. My sister Marlene and her children Lisa and David were visiting from Hawaii where Marlene’s husband Roland was stationed in the Coast Guard.

Mama, Hazel Hodges, had been at my aunt’s house helping to reupholster some furniture and I, dressed in my bathing suit, had been playing with the children and my ponies. That shower arrived with lightning and thunder and sent us into the house. Marlene had dinner cooked, and we were ready to feed and bathe the children before Mama came home. When she arrived I was in the bedroom reading a story to Lisa and David in the bedroom across the hall from the kitchen.

As I walked across the hall to see her I smelled smoke which seemed odd. Nothing was cooking. We talked and I went back to the bedroom only to smell smoke again. I told Mama and we went to the second floor and the third and everything seemed OK. After the kids were settled I went to the dining room and looking out the bay windows, I saw smoke going by the window. I asked Mama if she was burning anything in the burn barrel and she replied no. Walking outside on the porch and looking up toward the third floor on the side of the house where there was no porch, smoke was billowing out of the eaves and window. We found out later that lightning had struck the house and caused the fire. A man in Middlesex saw the lightning strike as it happened.

Not being able to use our phone due to party line being busy, Marlene and I grabbed the children along with the dog and headed to a fireman’s house to report the fire. Marlene had been brushing her teeth at the time and later her toothbrush was found on the concrete step.

Leaving the children and the dog behind, we rushed back to help Mama as much as we could. Flames engulfed the house with the cedar siding and roofing very quickly. People from all over Mathews came to help us. Almost immediately it turned from saving the house to saving what they could from inside. The men worked hard removing furniture and as many belongings as they could. My room on the first floor was the last one they did and they had to remove the window to get things out because the fire had made its way to the hall that ran from the front to the back of the house. In what seemed like a matter of minutes it was gone. The home my mama and daddy worked so hard for was gone.

During this time Daddy had been piloting a ship down the Bay from Baltimore. One of the men on the ship from Gwynn’s Island had called his wife as they were off from Gwynn’s Island and she told him what was happening. He had to break the news to Daddy. The next day we were scattered between homes. I was still in my bathing suit and had to go to the old school building where they took our furniture and try to find something to put on. Mama went to pick Daddy up from getting off the ship. As they approached the charred smoking lot where the house once stood, reality set in and he wept. He had worked so hard to make this our home. Sometimes he worked 2-3 jobs to keep a roof over our heads and pay for the upkeep of this old home. He had worked hard to get his license to become a ship’s pilot to provide better for our family. Now his life’s dream turned to ashes.

The cleanup began and we rented the house across from the post office so we could be close. Soon after we started building our new home. I can see Daddy now refinishing some of the charred furniture pieces outside on the well cover. We had a lot of them. Other refinishing of furniture pieces were left to the gifted hands of Pug Callis. We watched from across the road as a new normal was being built.

Gone were the tall windows that let the cool breezes of summer into the rooms. Gone were the wrap-around porches where many little feet had run around, hammock naps had been taken and relaxing afternoon gatherings had happened. Gone was the long hall that lent itself to sock skating. The wonderful stairs and its banisters that had the best slide. The hide and seek places. The pajama party places and the doll beds where all but one of my dolls rested were no more. Memories that forever will be locked inside our hearts.

It’s times like these we get to truly know the thoughtfulness of neighbors. Everyone was so kind. I told Lisa the other day about our church giving Mama a Pounding and she had never heard of one. It was like a shower where you bring staples needed to replenish a kitchen pantry. Lisa looked it up and it was mostly used for ministers when they came into a new church. We both said what a lovely thought it was.

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of that time. Fifty-six years have passed and we have moved on. Interesting how my son who was not born then is a firefighter. Funny when I’m stressed I smell smoke. I’ve looked many a time for a fire that isn’t there. I’ve gone to find something I had then that isn’t here now.

We lost a lot back then but we gained a new respect for the people who helped us from our community. With no insurance, Daddy had to work a little harder to catch back up and he did. All in all, we could still reach out and touch each other. We could still gather at a table and be thankful we were all together. God had watched over us. The fire destroyed so much, but in the end we had our love and that is the strongest building block of all.