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Community rallies round fire victim
Susan Kasper has no clothes or furniture, her family relics are gone and her home is a partially burned out, smoky, sodden, flame retardant-greased shell.
But she calls everything that has happened since she saw flames behind the stovepipe in her 18th century log home north of Round Hill March 4 "a miracle. The outpouring of the community has been amazing – from my company, my neighbors, from people I don't know. I've had calls and offers of help from the Lions Club, the churches, the ladies club in Round Hill."
A firefighter brought Rocky, one of her two cats, out while companies from Round Hill, Purcellville, Philomont, Lovettsville, Hamilton and Clarke County fought the blaze. Spice was located several hours later, hiding under a stairwell. Rocky's whiskers were singed, both cats, strays taken in my Kasper, suffered from smoke inhalation. But they are alive and home with her.
Kelly Blackstock, Kasper's co-worker at the Precision Tune Auto Care corporate office in Leesburg, came straight to the fire on Tree Crops Lane. She has set up the Susan Kasper Assistance Fund at Wachovia Bank on Catoctin Circle in Leesburg.
Kasper has settled since the day of the fire in a small apartment in a neighbor's house. Friends have donated furniture, Kohl's has helped with clothing, she said, and Giant Food has offered to replace all the food she lost in the fire.
The 1780 two-story log house, known locally as the Hollow House – it's in the hollow on a Blue Ridge mountain slope below the old Round Hill reservoir -- can be saved, Kasper said. The logs can be restored, but the addition, probably dating from about 1920, will have to be torn down. Because she heated with wood, she had been turned down for insurance. Renovation, which will run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars, will depend on what she can pull together.
When she can start, she said, she wants to treat the 18th century core "gently, so the integrity of the 18th century features is maintained." Then she wold like to add 21st century technology in the heating, wiring, kitchen and bathroom.
Kasper literally had one foot out the door the morning of March 4, purse over her shoulder, coat in hand, when she smelled smoke. Probably just the wind, pushing smoke down the chimney, she thought. But then she had an "overwhelming urge" to go upstairs. She saw the flames, rushed downstairs, threw her purse and coat outside and called 911. She went back in to search for Rocky and Spice until the smoke forced her out.
She was in tears in the front yard, Kasper recalled. She hugged, she said, nearly 80 firefighters and EMTs. Friends arrived from her office, neighbors converged, a friend drove in from Winchester. "A fellow came up to me, he may have been a volunteer, put his arm around me and said, 'Lady, this is all I have,' and put $5 in my hand.
"That little act of kindness transformed my grief to gratitude and I have been on a love/joy high ever since. We never know how the smallest thing can change a person’s life."
Friends from Fauquier, from Jeffersonton, and from Rappahannock, where she once belonged to the Virginia Association of Biological Farmers, have all offered help.
We all call firefighters "brave," Kasper said. "But when you see them going in your house that's filled with smoke, there's no words to describe the love and appreciation."
Back at work Monday, March 9, Kasper said, "It's almost like a metaphor. My house in ashes, the economy in ashes – but it's all going to rise."
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