After Fire, Baldwin Family Celebrates Return Home

Last December was a dark one on Lois Drive in . After a fire destroyed a family’s house on Dec. 9, neighbors wouldn’t even turn on the Christmas lights.

Ron Ducouer—who lived in that house with his wife, Jo Ann, and his daughter, Jolene—said that during the 30 years that he had lived on Lois, he gained a reputation for going all out with decorations.

So much could be gleaned on Aug. 2, nearly a month after the Ducouers had moved back on the street in a new house built on their property. Christmas lights covered the mailbox and stretched along a brick wall lining the driveway. A cactus and flamingo, both donning Santa hats, poked out of the front lawn.

The decorations remained from a Christmas in July party that the family held on July 23 to thank neighbors who helped them after the fire. Many donated money and basic living necessities, and one even provided a house for them on a nearby street.

“It was just unbelievable,” Ron Ducouer said. “With all our friends, relatives and neighbors, we got through it.”

The family sustained $152,000 in structural damage and $139,000 in lost belongings, according to Ron Ducouer. Two pet dogs died in the fire. One car was destroyed, and another was severely damaged.

“The house was gone,” he said. “Everything inside was gone. We couldn’t save a thing.”

Looking at the property today, it’s hard to detect the past. A modular, prefabricated house rises two stories over a driveway that contains a pickup truck and a car. Fish swim in a small, man-made pond near the mailbox. About the only thing out of place is the grass that has yet to sprout in the front yard.

Insurance covered nearly all of the damage caused by the fire, which Ron Ducouer said was determined to have resulted from a malfunctioning flue pipe on a wood-burning stove in the basement.

The outpouring of community support made pulling through the disaster less painful for the family. Ron Ducouer credits neighborly friendship with much of the charity that his family received, but “perfect strangers” also came to their assistance, he said.

Joseph McCarthy was one of those strangers. When McCarthy and his wife, Joanne, heard what happened, they stopped and gave the family a gift card. The McCarthys lost their North Versailles Township home to a fire in 1981, and Joseph McCarthy said that he understood the difficulties that the Ducouers faced.

“The neighbors (here) stick together and look out for each other,” Joseph McCarthy said. “(The Ducouers) thought a lot of them.”

Joseph Jani, who on the night of the fire took the Ducouers to a home formerly occupied by his parents on nearby McAnulty Road, hadn’t known the family prior to the fire, either.

“It’s not a big deal, really,” Jani said, adding that he thinks others helped out just as much. “If you can’t help your neighbor, who the hell can you help?”

Jani, who lives in , said that though he hadn’t known the Ducouers personally, Ron’s name came up in conversations with his late father, who was blind. Ron had lent him a hand around the house.

The Ducouers stayed in the Jani house until their recent move back to Lois Drive. Jani, who stopped by the Christmas in July party along with his wife, said that he suspects that the families will keep in touch.

“They’re really nice people,” he said.

Ron Ducouer said that he couldn’t guess how many people showed up to the party, which “lasted from noon until probably about four in the morning.”

“They were coming and going all day long,” he said. “Anybody could come. I didn’t care if perfect strangers came, because perfect strangers came to us after the fire.”

The family’s spot on Lois Drive is a slice of paradise that Ron Ducouer said he doesn’t plan to leave.

“I’ll never move from here—never,” Ducouer said. “We’re just like family; it’s unreal.”