More Important Than Possessions

LAST December 28 Jess and Linda Shull were married in Petaluma, California, and soon afterward left for a honeymoon in Nevada. On their return to their home in Wyoming, they planned to move into a new two-story house.

“I built it all myself,” explained Jess. “I knew I was going to get married soon, and I worked hard to get the house just the way we wanted it.” Shortly before leaving on their honeymoon, they moved many of Linda’s things into their new home in the rural Lost Wells Butte area northwest of Riverton, Wyoming.

While they were in Nevada, on Friday, January 3, their new house caught fire and burned. “Nobody was able to reach us,” Linda said. “But I’m glad they weren’t able to. It would have ruined our honeymoon.”

High winds in the area were apparently a factor in starting the fire. The house, which it had taken Jess over three years to build, was a total loss. And worst of all, it was uninsured.

In a front-page story on January 14, The Riverton Ranger reported what happened after the volunteer firemen left: “A new group of people, about the same in number as the firemen, went out to Lost Wells Butte. . . . The house was a mess, with two feet of sludge and ash settled in the middle of the living room. The bedroom was gone, burned away. It was hard to know where to start.

“But start they did, and within a few hours, they had cleaned up much of the mess.

“Jess and Linda were due back in a couple of days. They still didn’t know what had happened to their new house. . . .

“By Tuesday, Jan. 7, just four days after the house had been declared totally destroyed, the group of 50 Jehovah’s Witness volunteers had a roof over the place. It had been a smelly black hole hours before. . . .

“The Shulls’ friends had put down roofing material, installed new plumbing, ran new electrical wires. They rolled out insulation, hung sheet rock, sprayed wall texture. . . .

“They worked long hours . . . in January, in Wyoming. The temperature near Lost Wells Butte rarely topped 15 degrees. . . .

“The Jehovah’s Witnesses who made sure two young people didn’t come back from their honeymoon to find their house in ashes are mostly dispersed now. They remain anonymous, the kind of people who help a friend for the sake of helping, not for attention in the newspaper.

“But Jess and Linda Shull want people to know the kind of friends they have. ‘When you come back, and you’re told that everything is gone . . . , ’ said Linda, pausing. ‘Well, it just makes you so grateful to realize everything that you do have.’

“The Shulls lost a lot. They almost lost their house, and many of their possessions are up in smoke. But they know now about other things, even more valuable than a pool table or a darkroom, things that money won’t buy.

“Things that, even in a blazing fire, just won’t burn up.”

[Picture Credit Line on page 23]

Riverton, Wyoming, Fire Department