Things we found in the ashes . . .

We arrived to the Panhandle of Oklahoma about 24 hours after a wild fire had burned Denisa's Mother's house to the ground. The house and its contents were a total loss. But because the fire started from the back corner of the house, we were surprised to see that things just beyond the front porch were untouched. Gleaming in front of the rubble was a white cross still planted in its spot in the flower bed. That cross was made by our camping buddies--Dennis and Judy. We met them more than a thousand miles away from here, in a campground near Glacier National Park in 2017. Dennis has made thousands of these simple white wooden crosses, and given them away to people they meet. We didn't have a front yard to display ours, so this one landed in the panhandle of Oklahoma five years ago. It shines as a testament that Jesus and his sacrifice remain even when the world can take everything else away. 

We drove through some stiff winds to get here, and that wind continued to blow for two more days after we arrived. The embers from burning hay and grass continued to come to life with the winds. Fire trucks were back in this area for several days afterwards, fighting rekindled fires. That wind also brought a surprising amount of top soil that blew in from the fire-scarred land surrounding the house. This pasture that had grass and cattle a few days ago, now looks like a desert. The bar ditches are filled up with blowing sand.

With no grass to hold it in place, the sand sifted over the burned rubble in drifts. Even though we drove by the house the day after the fire, we couldn't see where the house had once stood. There was so much dirt in the air visibility was zero!

We thought that the metal roof would make it harder to search for any unburned treasures. It was actually the two-foot-tall drifts of sand that made it the most difficult. The large sections of metal roof did make it challenging, but we also found that they made the fire even hotter. The metal traps in the heat and flames, and will cause the inferno inside to be even hotter. 

After waiting two days for the wind to die down, Mark and our brother-in-law got up before daybreak to get the first pictures of the twisted metal roof and a few remaining metal pieces that were still standing. They were up so early because the wind was supposed to return later in the day--and it did. Mark was immediately recruited to patch burned fences to keep the cattle off the road.

But our brother-in-law started searching for several things. One was the key to the pickup that was parked outside the house. We knew that the key should have been on the kitchen ledge in front of the oven. We consider it a miracle that he dug through that two feet of sand and found it. It was scorched and had melted into a curve. But he carefully straightened and cleaned it. When he put it into the pickup ignition, it turned and started! It was even good enough that a couple copies could be made from it. That wouldn't be possible with a newer vehicle's computerized key! That was the best discovery of the day!

Right beside that key was another interesting find. A pottery dish filled with coins almost seemed intact. It's wooden lid was gone  . . . 

and the coins inside were melted together into twisted lumps of metal. 

It was eerie to walk through a house with no walls. The piano's metal skeleton and it's metal strings were a strange sight without its beautiful wooden exterior. It seemed odd that the piano in the living room was now lying beside the broken china from the dining room. There used to be a wall separating the two. Once you burn up everything wooden, there is little left.

The heat from the fire also welded some metal things together. This 50-cent coin was curiously welded to a metal jewelry box.

Stone can withstand the fire, but it two will become brittle. Parts of the fireplace were still standing. But it was interesting that the large pieces of petrified wood in the garden porch splintered into smaller pieces.

We found that pearls don't fare well in this much heat. While they remained in a line inside the metal jewelry display box, these pearls were a total loss. This string of pearls was a gift to Denisa from Mark for our 10th wedding anniversary.

While Denisa's Mother lost everything in the fire, we also lost a few precious things. When we moved into the motor home seven years ago, we gave away almost everything that didn't fit into our new mobile life style. But we had a few things that weren't easily replaceable that we would enoy when we returned to a sticks-and-bricks lifestyle. Most of those things were stored at Denisa's Mother's house. All those things were lost in the fire. We lost three quilts that Denisa had hand pieced and hand quilted. We lost our china, and stoneware dishes that were too heavy for the motor home. 

We lost some jewelry and a hand-made stained glass clock. We lost the antique bowl and platter that was a wedding present to Denisa's grandparents in the early 1900s. We lost our antique sewing cabinet that Denisa's Father had rebuilt for her. We lost the antique metal trunk that had been in the family for 100 years. We lost many of our photo albums, and twenty years of the journals that Denisa wrote. She had written daily about all the cute things our children said and did while they were growing up. We're hoping those electronic copies that we made are still retrievable as we haven't checked on them in these last seven years. 

Our losses are very trivial compared to all the things that Denisa's Mother lost in that fire. This was the house where she was born almost 92 years ago. This was the home that her parents raised her brothers and sisters. This was the home that she and her husband remodeled and then raised their family. They did the work themselves. Denisa's Father built all the cabinets and woodwork himself. It was a physical and sentimental loss!

Mark did find two tiny diamonds among the sand. While the mountings melted, we have proof that diamonds can withstand fire. A second long day of hunting through the ashes didn't turn up any surviving momentos. While we found that hand-made pottery can survive a fire, those pieces had melted glass dripped on them from neighboring glassware. We never could find the bank safe deposit box key. Besides that pickup key, nothing was salvageable from inside the house.

While the house and a couple other buildings are total losses, it is very interesting that the big red barn on the other side of the corrals escaped unscathed. It still sits proudly on the top of the hill. It's nice to see the outpouring of love from friends and neighbors. A couple days after the fire, a couple friends brought loads of hay to feed the cattle that now have no grass to eat. Denisa's Mother lost 60 bales of hay in the fire.

Denisa's Mother, Betty, loved her lawn ornaments. That would include her namesake wooden "Betty Boop" statue out in front of the house. It had been in the front yard for years. This picture taken from the front of the burned house shows that the cross and Betty Boop are unsinged. That represents the important things that remained in the ashes. We're glad to report that the real Betty is still alive and well, and the fire hasn't burned her faith. She is clinging to her favorite bible verse: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28