WSET.com - ABC13Valentine's Day Fire Destroys Home

Reporter: Sally Delta

Gladstone, VA - An elderly woman in Gladstone, Mary Grimes, is staying with relatives after she lost everything in a house fire and has no insurance to cover it.

According to her son Dan Peters, the 19th-century home had an older model wood stove that kept them from getting insured. Now she and family members are doing their best to pick up the pieces.

It's a time when most realize that material things don't really matter. What's most important is that everyone got out okay. But the "things" Mary Grimes lost in her house fire are especially hard to part with.

"She had stuff of her mothers, which has been in the family for years and her grandmother's stuff, but most of it's gone," said Peters. 

The last connection 84-year-old Grimes had to her mother - parts of her past that would have been passed down to her children and grandchildren - are now only a memory.

"Some old things, I had a trunk of my grandmother's...full of pictures, are those gone?--I think so," said Grimes.

The home is where Grimes built a family raising her son Peters and his sisters.

"I was born here, raised here, run up and down the woods and yard," said Peters.

The last memory: It was just before dinner time on Valentine's Day when Grimes says she and her daughter smelled smoke.

"We smelled it and then we saw it, but we didn't know where it was coming from," said Grimes.

"The chief told me it was so hot they couldn't go in when they first got here and had to put water on the outside and cool it down before they could go in, but those guys really worked hard and did a great job," said Peters.

Grimes is currently staying with her daughter.

The fire is still under investigation. If you're interested in helping Grimes, call Dan Peters at 434-845-2740.