toothbrush. slippers. hearing aid. Pedestrians.
One day you have everything about you. The next day, it’s gone and you’re starting from scratch – something you didn’t expect to do in your 70s, 80s, or 90s.
“On the first day, I had to buy some underwear,” said 86-year-old Diane Williams.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a columnist for the Los Angeles Times since 2001. He has won over 12 National Journalism Awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
She bought a sofa, a kitchen table, several lamps and a new bed for Tommy, a 13-year-old terrier.
“It’s fragmentary,” her 89-year-old husband Verne said of stocking again. “One day I go and get a little more shirt or pants. I had to get my shoes twice before I could get this pair I like.”
Reorganizing after the devastating Eaton and Palisade fires can be a nightmare at any age, but there is an additional burden for older people.
When they lost their home in the Palisade fire, 95 and 88 (Joe and Allein Halper, ages 95 and 88, took temporary settlements in their grandson’s home and began sorting out their options. They always wanted to spend their days at home, but rebuilding could take years.
“At our age, that doesn’t make sense,” Joe said.
Diane Williams is surrounded by parts of the house that was destroyed by Eton Fire.
“At first I was really shocked, but then I was like, ‘What’s going to happen to us?’ This was not in our plan,” Arline said. “We didn’t even have a toothbrush… so I was just overwhelmed. I just went to CVS and didn’t know where to start, I just wandered.”
Arline was shopping for kitchenware one day when she saw the cutting board that caused her memories, and she broke with tears. Her son made one for her almost half a century ago when he was a student at Paul Revere Middle School, and it got lost in the fire.
“It’s so emotional and you try to suppress it, move forward and appreciate what you have,” Arline said. “Even so, it’s all these memories.”
Halpers is a good friend, and his former Palisade neighbor is named Alice Lynn, and the house survives. However, Lyn, a therapist in the mid-80s, doesn’t know when he’ll be able to return. She moved to yet another temporary home.
“Moving is difficult,” Lynn said. This is also the displacement confusion, especially for older people who find familiarity and everyday comfort.
“Where is the spatula? Where is the coffee cup?” Lin asked, and how long can you sign a lease when you don’t know when the fire fragments will be removed from your property? “It’s like your life has been switched to this parallel universe.”
At Altadena, Katty and Ed Unsted (both 77) lost their apartment at Etonfire. They quickly evacuated and left hearing aids behind. The fire also destroyed Katy’s cell phone, her walker, and her CPAP breather.
Kathi and Ed Ahnstedt look over a handful of Katy’s snow babies recovered from their Etonfire-destroyed Altadena apartment.
But that’s not what she wanted to talk about:
“What I miss most,” Katy said, “It’s all about my Christmas.”
She lost hundreds of ornaments and set fire to dozens of miniature Christmas villages boxed for the upcoming holiday season.
“I decorated and decorated Christmas trees all year round,” Katy said. “I was changing it every month. Just like St. Patrick’s Day, change it. There were 40 or 50 years’ worth of ornaments. It was almost a solid ornament. Not as much as one every five inches.”
It was all incinerated along with artificial wood.
However, there was one miracle on Via Mendocino. Dozens of porcelain snow baby figurines from Kati’s collection were counted in hundreds, but they survived Inferno despite the burned shelves on display.
Several snow birds from Kathi Ahnstedt’s collection were saved from the ruins of her house.
“We saw where they might have fallen when the roof caves down,” Katy said. Her daughter, Michelle, is sifting through the rooftop rub and said that search and rescue missions may still raise more survivors.
Katy has been cleaning the figurines with baking soda paste, but she’s also doing some shopping.
“Ed is here and I don’t want him to hear this, but I already have 12 new Nutcrackers,” Katy confesses, adding that she is replacing some of the lost snow babies. “I’m a bit obsessed with eBay.”
Ed knows more than he passes to his wife and explains he is smart to her dul, but chooses to respect the personal code.
“A happy wife, for a happy life, I just refuse to say anything.”
Ansstetz is planning to stay at Lacanada Flintridge’s daughter’s house and build an ADU in her backyard. That would be a big adjustment, but “compared to others, we are gold,” Katy said. Ed is manufacturing custom fishing rods and reels for his living and lost all his supplies. But like his wife, he is rebuilding his collection and already building a new workshop in his daughter’s backyard.
Meanwhile, the Halpers are in the midst of their own unexpected transition. They did not consider themselves to be cut out for the retirement community, but a few weeks ago they moved to one of the Playa Vistas.
“I’m used to it,” said Joe, a Korean War veteran, longtime civil servant and current board member of the Los Angeles Parks Foundation.
She is socially active and, like her husband, never felt defined by age, but she has experienced her own adjustments. “People are friendly and very nice,” Arline said of the retirement community. “But it’s very age-specific and it’s kind of awakening for me. And I was like, ‘Oh, I think I belong here.’
Diane and Verne Williams made another call.
Diane Williams and her husband Verne visit the location of their home. They want to rebuild to leave something behind for their six children, six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Diane said their home on Breburn Road, near the Altadena Golf Course, is the home base and holiday gathering for the Blend Family (her three children and his three children).
According to Diane, they wanted to rebuild, and so is the rest of the family, including six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
“We may not be living to see the house fully built. Do do that. “So we are rebuilding it as a family heritage.”
And who owns the house when they are gone?
Kathi Anstedt looks at some of the Snowbabys he recently purchased. She lost hundreds of them in the Eton fire.
Their kids will understand that, Diane said.
“You have options. You can either take the insurance money and leave it to your kids, or rebuild a special home for your kids and grandchildren. And that’s what I think, and that’s what I’ll help me get through every day,” Diane said.
And isn’t it something for Diane and Verne to host their first family Christmas party in their new home?
“It brings tears to my eyes,” Verne said.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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