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    Out of the Fire: Life from the Ashes
    Out of the Fire: Life from the Ashes
    Out of the Fire: Life from the Ashes
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Out of the Fire: Life from the Ashes

    By Annie L. Chivers

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    About this ebook

    In 1948, Annie Chiverss parents packed their meager belongings, gathered their six children, and set off from Pigeon Creek, Alabama, for Niagara Falls, where they hoped to start a new life filled with great possibilities. As the family settles into Hyde Park Village and begin to dream for the best, none of them have any idea of the impact their decision has just made on all of their lives.

    In her poignant memoir, Annie details how she was just three years old in 1956 when her family received an eviction notice, just weeks before Christmas. Desperate and now homeless with ten children, Annies father quickly seized an offer from the owner of the dilapidated Moonglow Hotel, who opened rooms for all the low-income housing evictees. But on November 16, 1957, his decision proved fatal when fire ravaged the hotel. Pulled from the flames by her sister who found her hiding under her crib, Annie is thrown from a second story window and miraculously survives. Unfortunately, eighteen others did not, including seven of her siblings.

    Out of the Fire shares the heartbreaking, inspirational story of one womans journey in the aftermath of losing nearly her entire family in a historical fire as she discovers that faith is knowing that God is always presenteven during the worst of tragedies.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInspiring Voices
    Release dateJan 17, 2013
    ISBN9781462405015
    Out of the Fire: Life from the Ashes
    Author

    Annie L. Chivers

    Annie L. Chivers was one of seven who survived the worst fire in the history of upstate New York in 1957. She is a retired US Marine Corps First Sergeant and recently retired from her second career in federal civil service. Annie currently lives in Hubert, North Carolina, with her husband, John.

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      Book preview

      Out of the Fire - Annie L. Chivers

      Copyright © 2013 Annie L. Chivers.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Inspiring Voices books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      Inspiring Voices

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.inspiringvoices.com

      1-(866) 697-5313

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4624-0500-8 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4624-0501-5 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2013900868

      Inspiring Voices rev. date: 1/14/2013

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      Chapter 1 Early Life in Alabama

      Chapter 2 The Move to Upstate New York

      Chapter 3 Facing Eviction a Month Before Christmas

      Chapter 4 Tenement Housing at the Moonglow Hotel

      Chapter 5 The Burning of the Moonglow Hotel

      Chapter 6 Trying to Make Sense of the Loss

      Chapter 7 A Broken Heart that Never Got the Chance to Heal

      Chapter 8 Reflecting on Those Lost in the Fire and Afterward

      Chapter 9 Coping with the Loss of a Beloved Sister

      Chapter 10 Having a Heart to Help Others in Spite of Loss

      Epilogue

      In memory of the Reid children—

      Walter, Herbert, Carson, Harvey, William, Sanford Jr., and Mary Louise

      —their lives taken by fire all too soon

      Preface

      I can say that it is very difficult to write about an event fifty-five years after it happened, especially an event so tragic as to defy description at times.

      I survived a fire that killed eighteen people—seven of whom were my brothers and baby sister. The pain of that event still brings tears to my eyes fifty-five years later. I am jolted out of a sound sleep at times from the sensation of falling from a second-story window. I still see those flames lighting up the pre-dawn sky when I close my eyes in moments of reverie.

      Although I have called my writings a memoir, more than half focuses on one event—the fire of 1957 and its aftermath. I’ve spoken for several years about starting this project. One excuse after another led to its delay. Finally in 2011, after retiring for the final time, I decided the time was right. I had already missed the opportunity to have this done in time for the fiftieth anniversary commemoration in 2007. So when I received an email from Inspiring Voices about a book contest they were sponsoring, it was as if a door opened just waiting for me to enter. I didn’t place in the contest, but forged ahead with the publication anyway.

      I want Walter, Herbert, Carson, Harvey, William, Sanford Jr., and Mary Louise to be remembered. I never want them to be just another set of statistics resulting from tragedy. I want their lives to always matter, even though their lives were ever so brief. Although their lives were lost during the holiday season (less than two weeks before Thanksgiving Day), I want to use my words to reflect on the positive impact that their deaths had—not only on me, but also on the future of Niagara Falls, New York.

      chapter

      1

      Early Life in Alabama

      I stand in the cemetery on a sunny but frigid day in November 2007, shivering from the cold, staring intently at the ground. The emotions welling inside me are difficult to describe as I ponder the lives of the seven children buried there. Fifty years ago their lives, along with the lives of eleven others, had been snuffed out by fire, and I was there on this day to commemorate them. The graves contained the bodies of my six brothers and my five-month-old baby sister. I collapse to the ground in grief, weeping with an almost tangible sorrow that seemed to come from the depths of my soul. The near-frozen ground covering my brothers and my baby sister is the finalization of their lives, but decades before this day, they had gone to bed expecting to get up the next morning and go about their day as usual. However, nothing was usual about the day that they died. I decided to write this memoir to give them the voice that they lost so abruptly fifty years ago. It was only by the grace of God that my voice was not lost along with theirs on that fateful, history-making day.

      To begin their story I need to go back to the 1920s when my mother, Louise Crittenden, and my father, Sanford Reid, were childhood sweethearts growing up in rural Greenville, Alabama. They were both from poor families who made much of their living in the cotton fields and farming communities. Both received their limited education in a home-style setting since public education was unavailable for the poor blacks in that area. Books and few other resources were passed from family to family and used again and again. Teaching was accomplished with an iron hand that sometimes wielded a big stick. Of course that is not allowed today, but back then not only was it allowed, but children could

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