Friends, family and neighbors are coming together to help a family that lost their home on one of the most joyous days of the year.
Lonnie and Sherry Evans were celebrating Christmas with his mother on Tuesday when Lonnie received a call from the Carthage Fire Department that turned their lives upside down.
The fire department had Lonnie’s phone number because he had called for help a year or so before when a lawn mower caught fire near a dry soybean field.
They broke the news that the couple’s home for the past nine years was on fire.
“It was just pandemonium, shock,” Lonnie Evans said. “I wanted to get there as quick as I could because it’s not one of those things — it’s like it can’t be. You just can’t believe it.”
By the time Lonnie and Sherry had returned, it was pretty clear the loss was almost total.
“The fire had already gone through the roof and the fire department was just containing it,” Lonnie Evans said on Wednesday, Dec. 26. “In the kitchen area, we were able to, last night, go in and get some of my wife’s dishes and her mom’s dishes that were on top of the kitchen cabinets. We had that out and we were planning on going back out today and doing some more salvaging, but a little after 3 a.m. we got a phone call and the fire had come back up. It’s down to just the basement walls and foundations.”
Carthage Deputy Fire Chief David Myers said fire department received the call around 1:40 p.m. on Tuesday about the fire at the home at 8209 Locust Road.
When crews arrived, they found that fire had already broken through the roof of the home on the back side, making it too dangerous for firefighters to enter the home and fight the fire from the inside.
Myers said a Carthage Firefighter was injured when he twisted his knee while fighting the fire.
The firefighter was taken by ambulance to Mercy Carthage Hospital for treatment.
Myers said firefighters from Avilla, Jasper and Oronogo helped fight the fire.
Myers said the cause of the fire was still under investigation by local investigators as of late Tuesday evening.
Evans said the family bought the home in 2009 and raised three children, who have since grown and moved out.
Evans said his son got engaged on Tuesday, another life-changing milestone on a chaotic holiday.
Evans said their church, the Harvest Community Church of Avilla, has set up an account where people can donate money.
“I appreciate what everyone is doing, but we’ve got insurance and all, and it’ll all work out,” he said. “We have had such an outpouring of support, and we so appreciate it. We’ve had two houses offered to us to live in, plus all of our family has offered to let us come stay with them. The house we stayed in last night, we’ve got until late Spring when the people that own it come back. It was a church member’s house, they sold it to a relative that lives in Utah and they’re not going to be ready to come here until Spring.”
On its Facebook page, the church said donations can be mailed to Harvest Community Church, P.O. Box 41, Avilla, Mo., 64833.
“Lonnie and Sherry appreciate all the love and encouragement,” the Church’s Facebook page said. “I hope we can all rally together to help make this time less burdensome for them. Everyone who knows this family, knows what giving and kind-hearted people they are.”
