Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,165
- Reaction score
- 5
BostonHerald.com - Danvers Explosion: ‘Tons of love’ - and turkey, too: Blast escapees give many thanks for solace, trimmings
Now separated by miles but forever bonded by a miracle, those who escaped Wednesday’s chemical blast in Danvers gave thanks yesterday for their lives, their families and the healing power of love.
At the Essex Park Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Beverly, which on a moment’s notice sheltered 51 displaced residents of the New England Home for the Deaf, volunteer interpreter Gail Sallop of Reading - whose 88-year-old deaf mother, Rebecca Sallop, was among the evacuees - led a blessing of donated family-style turkey and trimmings.
“It’s Thanksgiving. It’s appropriate to give thanks,” Gail Sallop signed as hands clasped and tears flowed.
“We’re so fortunate to be here together,” she said, her composure slipping.
Fortunate, Sallop reminded those gathered, “for a warm place to sleep, a roof over our heads, food on our table and tons and tons of love. We were able to stay together as a family.”
In Peabody, a stone’s throw from Bates Street in Danversport and the scorched wasteland that Michele Keith, 41, called home less than two days earlier, 26 of her family members briefly bowed heads as Dan DeLomba, 13, of Danvers said grace.
Two turkeys totaling 38 pounds and Keith’s uncle Dave Gabriel’s famous onion soup awaited.
“Everybody made it,” said Gabriel, 56. “That’s the miracle.”
It was 2:47 a.m. Thanksgiving Eve when Keith and her cherubic 3-year-old daughter Claudia, whom she adopted from Russia, were awakened in their two-bedroom Cape by flame, fury and shattering glass.
“When I heard the blast, I woke up. (Claudia) was screaming, I was screaming,” Keith said, cradling the toddler on her lap in Gabriel’s warm kitchen. “Through the broken windows we could see the flames.”
And Keith saw only one way out: the gaping hole that had been her dining room window.
“The house was still shaking and rumbling,” she recalled. “I just wanted out.”
Keith said she sat Claudia on the windowsill and heaved herself over the side.
“I think she was afraid I was leaving her,” she said.“I said, ‘Just jump!’ She jumped right into my arms.”
Keith’s mother, Adelaide Keith, 66, said her daughter had recounted, “ ‘It was a war zone. I could never live through it again.’
“Thanksgiving has become a forgotten holiday, and we have so much to be thankful for. There is nothing better in the world than to be together,” Adelaide Keith said.
Back in Beverly, the evacuees from the New England Home for the Deaf dug into pies cooked by the Somerville High School culinary arts program and cupcakes frosted by Cakes For Occasions in Danvers to resemble gooey turkeys.
They dined in a wing that Essex Park had closed for renovation but which now serves as a home away from home. Essex Park spokeswoman Marlene Sheehy said the facility had just given away the unit’s 55 beds to Third World charities a week ago. The center had to scramble to borrow beds for its new guests, Sheehy said.
Dawn Glidden, 54, of Lynn needed only the serene face of her 82-year-old mother, Elizabeth Olofson, a hearing-capable Alzheimer’s patient rescued from the Home for the Deaf.
“I’m very happy that she’s OK,” Glidden said, her eyes welling. “It’s Thanksgiving and I just love her to pieces. Where else would I want to be?”
Sheehy said the home’s evacuees arrived Wednesday night “terrified” and scarcely able to communicate.
“Touch is universal,” Sheehy noted. “Our entire staff was just carrying people in saying, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK. Welcome.’ ”
But yesterday, Roberto Aponte, 42, who is deaf, stroked beneath his eyes to communicate the sadness in his heart. Seven years ago, Aponte was left paralyzed on his right side after being hit by a car that he couldn’t hear bearing down on him.
When CAI Inc.and Arnel Inc. blew up, Aponte said as Sallop interpreted, “I thought, ‘What is this? Is God taking me?’ My family was supposed to come and get me and they didn’t. I need them. I’ve been crying. I’m trying my best to cope.”
Barry Zeltzer, the century-old home’s executive director, said police allowed him back inside yesterday morning to assess the devastation. He said it could be a month before they can consider reopening.
“It’s amazing to me no one was killed,” Zeltzer said, appearing exhausted by the ordeal.
“Glass fell on top of them, ceilings collapsed on them. And not one scratch. This is a true success story.”
Now separated by miles but forever bonded by a miracle, those who escaped Wednesday’s chemical blast in Danvers gave thanks yesterday for their lives, their families and the healing power of love.
At the Essex Park Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Beverly, which on a moment’s notice sheltered 51 displaced residents of the New England Home for the Deaf, volunteer interpreter Gail Sallop of Reading - whose 88-year-old deaf mother, Rebecca Sallop, was among the evacuees - led a blessing of donated family-style turkey and trimmings.
“It’s Thanksgiving. It’s appropriate to give thanks,” Gail Sallop signed as hands clasped and tears flowed.
“We’re so fortunate to be here together,” she said, her composure slipping.
Fortunate, Sallop reminded those gathered, “for a warm place to sleep, a roof over our heads, food on our table and tons and tons of love. We were able to stay together as a family.”
In Peabody, a stone’s throw from Bates Street in Danversport and the scorched wasteland that Michele Keith, 41, called home less than two days earlier, 26 of her family members briefly bowed heads as Dan DeLomba, 13, of Danvers said grace.
Two turkeys totaling 38 pounds and Keith’s uncle Dave Gabriel’s famous onion soup awaited.
“Everybody made it,” said Gabriel, 56. “That’s the miracle.”
It was 2:47 a.m. Thanksgiving Eve when Keith and her cherubic 3-year-old daughter Claudia, whom she adopted from Russia, were awakened in their two-bedroom Cape by flame, fury and shattering glass.
“When I heard the blast, I woke up. (Claudia) was screaming, I was screaming,” Keith said, cradling the toddler on her lap in Gabriel’s warm kitchen. “Through the broken windows we could see the flames.”
And Keith saw only one way out: the gaping hole that had been her dining room window.
“The house was still shaking and rumbling,” she recalled. “I just wanted out.”
Keith said she sat Claudia on the windowsill and heaved herself over the side.
“I think she was afraid I was leaving her,” she said.“I said, ‘Just jump!’ She jumped right into my arms.”
Keith’s mother, Adelaide Keith, 66, said her daughter had recounted, “ ‘It was a war zone. I could never live through it again.’
“Thanksgiving has become a forgotten holiday, and we have so much to be thankful for. There is nothing better in the world than to be together,” Adelaide Keith said.
Back in Beverly, the evacuees from the New England Home for the Deaf dug into pies cooked by the Somerville High School culinary arts program and cupcakes frosted by Cakes For Occasions in Danvers to resemble gooey turkeys.
They dined in a wing that Essex Park had closed for renovation but which now serves as a home away from home. Essex Park spokeswoman Marlene Sheehy said the facility had just given away the unit’s 55 beds to Third World charities a week ago. The center had to scramble to borrow beds for its new guests, Sheehy said.
Dawn Glidden, 54, of Lynn needed only the serene face of her 82-year-old mother, Elizabeth Olofson, a hearing-capable Alzheimer’s patient rescued from the Home for the Deaf.
“I’m very happy that she’s OK,” Glidden said, her eyes welling. “It’s Thanksgiving and I just love her to pieces. Where else would I want to be?”
Sheehy said the home’s evacuees arrived Wednesday night “terrified” and scarcely able to communicate.
“Touch is universal,” Sheehy noted. “Our entire staff was just carrying people in saying, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK. Welcome.’ ”
But yesterday, Roberto Aponte, 42, who is deaf, stroked beneath his eyes to communicate the sadness in his heart. Seven years ago, Aponte was left paralyzed on his right side after being hit by a car that he couldn’t hear bearing down on him.
When CAI Inc.and Arnel Inc. blew up, Aponte said as Sallop interpreted, “I thought, ‘What is this? Is God taking me?’ My family was supposed to come and get me and they didn’t. I need them. I’ve been crying. I’m trying my best to cope.”
Barry Zeltzer, the century-old home’s executive director, said police allowed him back inside yesterday morning to assess the devastation. He said it could be a month before they can consider reopening.
“It’s amazing to me no one was killed,” Zeltzer said, appearing exhausted by the ordeal.
“Glass fell on top of them, ceilings collapsed on them. And not one scratch. This is a true success story.”