The Walker Family is Moving Forward

She records what she can remember, and then moves on to the next room, and then a closet, and then maybe a clothing drawer. She remembers Buster, her half-beagle shelter dog—along with the family’s cat and turtle—but the insurance company can do nothing about that. There are  a “million things” Sharon wouldrather do right now, but the insurance company needs to know about all of their possessions before they can even attempt to reimburse the Walkers.

All of these things—gone. Forever. Sharon tilts her head back again, shuts her eyes, and tries to remember every last thing she will never see again.

***

Sharon woke up in her hotel room at 7:15 a.m. on Sunday Oct. 24. She had woken up early, but she didn’t want to wake her three kids in the room with her, so she just laid in bed, thinking.

The night before, she, her daughter junior Elli Walker, Dan, a seventh-grader, and Abby, a fifth-grader, had gone to a juggling show at Simon Hall as a part of Family Weekend at Washington University in St. Louis, where Sharon’s son Jack, a ‘10 East graduate, goes to college and is a member of their swim team.

Sharon had turned her phone off for the performance; thinking about it, she decided to turn it back on. Around 15-20 missed call and text notifications flooded her screen. The top call was from her mom, the top text from her sister who lives in New Jersey.

Sharon read the text: “call me or kate as soon as you can.” Maybe something had happened to her father, she thought. She called her sister Kate Mahoney, who lives in town. Sharon could hear her sister shuffling out of Mass.

Kate told her that her house burned down, and that she needed to call their neighbor, Jennifer McGonigle.

“It’s surreal,” Sharon said. “I kept asking about our pets, and they said, ‘Don’t hope.’ They might see the dog running around the neighborhood or something, but there was really nothing left. Don’t be hoping there was an animal in there or something, there was nothing to find.”

The fire was called in to 9-1-1 at 4:18 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 24, according to the Leawood Fire Report. By the time the first fire truck arrived, the house was “fully involved.” The whole house would end up on fire. Captain Frank Herrick said that the results of the investigation were not public record as of press date. Sharon said that both the Leawood Fire Department and her insurance provider have classified the cause of the fire as “undetermined.”

“People were panicking when they saw the house,” McGonigle said to FOX4 the day of the event. “Then I heard an explosion and a ‘psss’ sound, and I got up to see what was up. When the fire department got there, there were 20 foot flames coming out of the top of the house. The entire home was engulfed with flames.”

The Walkers sat on their bed and cried when they first found out. After Sharon made some necessary calls, they came back from St. Louis, taking the route so that they would come to the McGonigle’s house from the south. They didn’t want to see their home—not yet. They eventually walked north to their home. Sharon estimated around 30 people were there to see it with them.

Everything in the home was destroyed, according to Sharon. Even in parts where there was minimal or no fire damage, flooding had ruined almost everything inside. Sharon remembers seeing the refrigerator on its back. Abby saw the melted TV. They saw Elli’s prized Homecoming dress, smoldering.

“I remember telling them our faith, family and friends were all intact, so it was going to be OK,” Sharon said. “The rest of it…the pets were in heaven. [My brother Joe] passed away a year ago, and Joe would be with the pets. When we have the rest of the stuff, it was going to be OK.”

The Walkers hadn’t packed much, and they were left with only what they had taken with them. Sharon packed lightly, only bringing her work and a few clothes. Abby remembers bringing a few more clothes and her books. Elli brought clothes, but was upset that she forgot her school work.

Relief efforts started even before the family returned to Kansas City. When they arrived, friends of the Walkers had school gear for them. The McGonigle family opened up their home for them to stay in until they could find somewhere else.

The Walkers have insurance, but it is still unclear how much will be covered. Sharon hears from insurance employees from all over the country that have been put to the task of figuring out what will be completed next. Sharon works full-time as a teacher leader at Wyandotte High School, and has to find time after work or on the weekends to deal with the ensuing paperwork.

Senior Hanna Jane Stradinger, working with her sister sophomore Chloe Stradinger and junior Emily Frye, decided that they wanted to help. They chose to plan the Walk for the Walkers, a one mile walk around East.

“We all agreed we needed to do something, and we didn’t know what to do,” Hanna Jane said. “Emily suggested a walk, and at first I was like, ‘Wow, that’s going to be a ton of work.’ I didn’t think we could pull it together because I knew it had to be really soon so that we could get as much funds as we could raise as quickly to them as possible. We decided we could do it if we had a lot of help.”

The walk took place on Nov. 5—less than two weeks after the fire–and started at the East track. The Stradinger sisters and Frye organized for a radio station and the East drum line to come play music, and Krispy Kreme donated 1,200 donuts.

“The walk itself was so awesome,” Hanna Jane said. “At the beginning of the walk, seeing all these people come, I was like, “Oh my gosh, people are actually coming.’ It’s people I don’t know…but they heard about it and here to support the Walkers, which was so exciting.”

The walk raised over $10,000. Sharon also thinks one of the best parts is that her extended family got to see Elli and Dan, who both have Down Syndrome, interact with their friends from school.

“It’s so heartwarming to live in the community we live in and to have people show up and offer their support in love,” Sharon said. “I had a bunch of relatives there and they saw Elli with all of her friends and Dan with all of his friends…it was good for them to see the kids in their natural environments.”

The Walker family lived with the McGonigles for the first two weeks, and then moved into a home just down the street that had recently been vacated. The owner had recently moved into a nursing home, and the house wasn’t ready to be put on the market, so they were offered a chance to rent it. Sharon’s friends helped gather furniture and art to put in the new home, and they also painted some of the rooms. Jack’s college teammates from his swim team and their families donated 21 boxes of kitchenettes; as Abby says, “normal stuff we don’t have.”

Sharon still is trying to replace some of the things that mean the most to her kids. Abby lost her flute in the fire, and she worked with the Toon Shop to get a new rental. She has been working with the East staff and parents to get some of Jack’s academic pins and awards back. Elli was upset about losing her Choralier’s robe and her art supplies, so Sharon has been working to get those, too.

They have been relying on friends and family to provide clothing: each of Dan’s friends gave him one of their t-shirts and signs it, and he likes to choose which one to wear by the name. They all have needed clothing, especially as cooler temperatures required things such as sweatpants and jackets.

In the end, Sharon is just hoping that her family can move on. She remembers Elli recently becoming upset after seeing the debris being cleared away from their home, and says that all of them have had it hit them at different times. Although the process of returning things to normal is far from done, Sharon is constantly working to keep her family happy.

“We’ll just try to settle into our routine,” Walker said, “and put one foot ahead of the other.”

All photos by Lindsey Hartnett.