Lynn Hensen goes through the remains of her rented house with her son, Anthony Baham, Monday. They shared the home for just 29 days before it and their family dog were claimed by a grease fire Oct. 29.
Last month, Lynn Henson lost her home, her dog and a lifetime of memories when a pan of leftovers erupted into a blazing fire that engulfed the country home she shared with her son and grandson.
But her family has a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, she said.
Friends and community members who read about her story raised $4,500 for the family just before the holidays. Of the 32 Gilroy and King City employees of Calpine, a national power company, 30 donated the $75 dollar holiday stipend they receive from the company to the family. Add in the corporate match and Henson's family will be able to afford a couple months of rent on a new home, said Robin Balanesi, a family friend and an administrator at the Gilroy plant who began the effort by simply asking her co-workers to donate extra clothes to the family.
"I'm in awe," Henson said. "It's amazing to me. I didn't know people could join together like that."
Henson and her newly reunited family had barely been living in the cozy home on Holsclaw Road for a month before the fire. Henson's son, Anthony Baham, and his 13-year-old son Seth just moved to Gilroy from Washington to join her. Mother and son were estranged for about 15 years before reconciling their differences. Moving in together has been "a whole new ball game for me," Henson said.
When they reunited, Henson got her son back, and learned she was a grandmother.
"For the first time in all my years, I felt like wow, this is home," she said. "It was a magical home, cozy and warm. I felt safe and secure there, looking up at the hills and the stars."
"It was an awesome house," Baham agreed. "It had an old feel and it was out of town. My room was my sanctuary."
Henson said she's wracked with guilt every time she thinks about how she briefly stepped away from the pan of oil she was tending on the stove. The house was build in the early 1900s in the middle of what used to be a prune orchard and went up in a matter of minutes. The house belonged to Frances and Warren Lindeleaf, according to the county assessor's office and neighbors.
"I feel terrible, awful, guilty," Henson said.
When the house burned, it took decades of memories down with it. As the family historian, Henson kept family photographs that dated back to the 1800s. Baham also lost all he had left of his younger brother - his dog tags and ashes - who was killed in a car accident two years ago.
Although the family escaped uninjured, Henson's dog Mercedes, a tiny Maltese poodle, never emerged from the debris. A gift from her sister, the puppy kept Henson company when she lived alone ... until her mother fell in love with the pooch and informally adopted her. However, Henson's mother died three years ago of cancer and the dog went back to living with Henson.
"The dog gave her a reason to get up in the morning," Henson said. "When I lost that dog, that was a real heartbreaker because that was the last part of my mother I held onto."
She said the thought of her mother and Mercedes reunited on the other side is what keeps her from falling apart.
Even though all she really wants is to have Mercedes back, the family has spent several afternoons rummaging through the rubble, looking for bits and pieces of their belongings and hoping for a little closure.
"In a way, it's been a healing process," Henson said. "You can either lay down and feel sorry for yourself and think the world owes you something, or get up and put one foot in front of the other and go on."
Sara Suddes Sara Suddes covers Gilroy for South Valley Newspapers. You can email her or call (408) 847-7158.
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