The Barn Fire
From James Donahue's Journal
Our barn on the Hale Road property was a massive structure. It had various parts to it, with the large main doors opening to the traditional hay mows on both sides of the main runway. We were allowing our neighbor Dan Hale to store his self-propelled combine there, and the main mow was filled with his hay. The other side was filled with miscellaneous farm-type things that were mostly there when we bought the property. This included steel fence posts, fence wire, some beehives and lumber. Hale’s son parked a snowmobile there.
The northern side of the barn had a lower level with a concrete floor and stanchions that were once used for keeping milk cows. Susie kept a rabbit pen in there. She also kept her horse somewhere in that barn, along with the tack and riding saddle. I used another large and somewhat vast storage area on that side of the main floor to store our power mower, a wheeled lawn fertilizer and seed spreader, my rototiller, rakes, shovels, hoes and other lawn and garden tools.
There was a second floor on the north side of that barn. It was a dark and forlorn place, and I do not recall using it for anything. We did set up a spook house in that part of the barn one Halloween and it was well received.
I have one strange memory of that barn. I was working in my garden, which lead almost from the front of the barn out to the road. All of a sudden, without warning, a crop-dusting aircraft lifted up from directly behind the barn roof, its engine roaring as the pilot barely missed the roof. I was not aware of a crop duster working in the area before that, and did not hear the aircraft approaching until that moment. The bright yellow wings almost spanned the width of the barn roof.
The Mezzo’s farmed all around us, either growing corn or peas. Instead of using tractors and normal farm equipment to cultivate and treat their crops, they hired crop dusters. When the tractors came in the field, they used massive John Deere tractors with enclosed, air-conditioned cabs that pulled harvesting and planting equipment so large they covered those fields in two or three sweeps. They were extravagant spenders and before we left the area, the Mezzo farms were into bankruptcy.
We lost that barn and everything in it in a fire one spring Saturday that almost claimed Jennifer, destroyed many of our fruit trees, and damaged my pickup which was parked nearby. Our mailman, Dan Tereschuk, just happened to be delivering our mail and noticed two things that caught his eye. There was smoke coming from the barn and Jennifer, who was barely walking at the time, was tottering into the open barn door. Dan grabbed Jennifer and carried her out of the barn just as the barn exploded into a ball of fire. After seeing Jennifer safely out of harm’s way, Dan also managed to push my pickup far enough away from the barn to save it, although the heat from the fire cracked the windshield. We were and remain forever grateful to that man for what he did that day. And if the fire department hadn’t been on the job as fast as they were, we believe we might also have lost our house. It was a disaster.
Doris was at work that day in Marlette. I also was away, acting as a school chaperone for students on a special trip that weekend to Mackinaw Island and Sault Ste. Marie. Aaron was among the students on the trip. While we were off having a wonderful time, Ayn and Susie were home with Jennifer. The origin of that fire remained a mystery for many years, but eventually, Susie confessed to us that she had been playing with matches in the barn and touched off the fire in the hay. She thought she could put the fire out with a hose attached to a barn water line, but she found to her horror that someone had turned off the water at the house. By the time she got a pail of water drawn and brought to the barn, the fire was out of control. She got her horse and tack out, but left the saddle and all of the tack too close to the barn and it all burned. The rabbits perished in the fire. I think our cat also died in the blaze. He disappeared and was never seen again.
Our place was the center of public attention for the rest of the day. Doris rushed home from work and took charge of the situation in the house. The only picture I had of that fire was the one that appeared in the Sanilac County News that week. I missed my own story.
When Aaron and I pulled into the yard after our trip, we were shocked to find a black, still smoking pile of rubble where the barn had once stood. To be seen was a ruined hulk of a combine, and some blackened trees that had been close to the barn. Happy were we to find the family safe and well, and our house still standing. Everything in the house smelled of smoke.
A few days after the fire I happened to remember that I had been having coffee with John Savage a week or two earlier, and John talked me into buying an insurance policy on our property from him. I had tried to insure our place with another agent but they only gave us limited coverage. Savage assured me that all of the buildings, even our barn, would be covered in the policy I bought from him. That policy came in the mail about the day Aaron and I left for our trip. I tossed it unopened on top of the refrigerator. I remembered that it was there, opened the envelope and read our new policy. The barn was indeed covered. The insurance paid for the fire call, getting the wreckage disposed of, and a few thousand dollars more. We used the extra money to take our second and final trip west that summer.
There was speculation around town that if our children didn’t start the fire, and at that time I was assured by the girls that they were innocent, that it was started from one of two other causes. The fire chief suggested that a bird might have carried a still burning cigarette butt into the barn. He said fires had been known to have been caused by that kind of thing. The other, unspoken possibility, some of it whispered, was that Dan Hale’s daughter might have started it to get back at her father. She was somewhat insane, and was constantly accusing Hale of abusing her. She never explained what he was doing to her, however.
Two or three other barns in the neighborhood burned that year, and people began thinking the Hale girl was a fire bug. There never was any proof. She was finally institutionalized, and while in the facility, she committed suicide by setting herself ablaze.
After that barn burned, our interest in the property waned. We had, by then, had so much trouble there and had become sure that the place was quite haunted. We started thinking about selling and moving on. We didn’t go right away, however, and our troubles were far from over at that place.
From James Donahue's Journal
Our barn on the Hale Road property was a massive structure. It had various parts to it, with the large main doors opening to the traditional hay mows on both sides of the main runway. We were allowing our neighbor Dan Hale to store his self-propelled combine there, and the main mow was filled with his hay. The other side was filled with miscellaneous farm-type things that were mostly there when we bought the property. This included steel fence posts, fence wire, some beehives and lumber. Hale’s son parked a snowmobile there.
The northern side of the barn had a lower level with a concrete floor and stanchions that were once used for keeping milk cows. Susie kept a rabbit pen in there. She also kept her horse somewhere in that barn, along with the tack and riding saddle. I used another large and somewhat vast storage area on that side of the main floor to store our power mower, a wheeled lawn fertilizer and seed spreader, my rototiller, rakes, shovels, hoes and other lawn and garden tools.
There was a second floor on the north side of that barn. It was a dark and forlorn place, and I do not recall using it for anything. We did set up a spook house in that part of the barn one Halloween and it was well received.
I have one strange memory of that barn. I was working in my garden, which lead almost from the front of the barn out to the road. All of a sudden, without warning, a crop-dusting aircraft lifted up from directly behind the barn roof, its engine roaring as the pilot barely missed the roof. I was not aware of a crop duster working in the area before that, and did not hear the aircraft approaching until that moment. The bright yellow wings almost spanned the width of the barn roof.
The Mezzo’s farmed all around us, either growing corn or peas. Instead of using tractors and normal farm equipment to cultivate and treat their crops, they hired crop dusters. When the tractors came in the field, they used massive John Deere tractors with enclosed, air-conditioned cabs that pulled harvesting and planting equipment so large they covered those fields in two or three sweeps. They were extravagant spenders and before we left the area, the Mezzo farms were into bankruptcy.
We lost that barn and everything in it in a fire one spring Saturday that almost claimed Jennifer, destroyed many of our fruit trees, and damaged my pickup which was parked nearby. Our mailman, Dan Tereschuk, just happened to be delivering our mail and noticed two things that caught his eye. There was smoke coming from the barn and Jennifer, who was barely walking at the time, was tottering into the open barn door. Dan grabbed Jennifer and carried her out of the barn just as the barn exploded into a ball of fire. After seeing Jennifer safely out of harm’s way, Dan also managed to push my pickup far enough away from the barn to save it, although the heat from the fire cracked the windshield. We were and remain forever grateful to that man for what he did that day. And if the fire department hadn’t been on the job as fast as they were, we believe we might also have lost our house. It was a disaster.
Doris was at work that day in Marlette. I also was away, acting as a school chaperone for students on a special trip that weekend to Mackinaw Island and Sault Ste. Marie. Aaron was among the students on the trip. While we were off having a wonderful time, Ayn and Susie were home with Jennifer. The origin of that fire remained a mystery for many years, but eventually, Susie confessed to us that she had been playing with matches in the barn and touched off the fire in the hay. She thought she could put the fire out with a hose attached to a barn water line, but she found to her horror that someone had turned off the water at the house. By the time she got a pail of water drawn and brought to the barn, the fire was out of control. She got her horse and tack out, but left the saddle and all of the tack too close to the barn and it all burned. The rabbits perished in the fire. I think our cat also died in the blaze. He disappeared and was never seen again.
Our place was the center of public attention for the rest of the day. Doris rushed home from work and took charge of the situation in the house. The only picture I had of that fire was the one that appeared in the Sanilac County News that week. I missed my own story.
When Aaron and I pulled into the yard after our trip, we were shocked to find a black, still smoking pile of rubble where the barn had once stood. To be seen was a ruined hulk of a combine, and some blackened trees that had been close to the barn. Happy were we to find the family safe and well, and our house still standing. Everything in the house smelled of smoke.
A few days after the fire I happened to remember that I had been having coffee with John Savage a week or two earlier, and John talked me into buying an insurance policy on our property from him. I had tried to insure our place with another agent but they only gave us limited coverage. Savage assured me that all of the buildings, even our barn, would be covered in the policy I bought from him. That policy came in the mail about the day Aaron and I left for our trip. I tossed it unopened on top of the refrigerator. I remembered that it was there, opened the envelope and read our new policy. The barn was indeed covered. The insurance paid for the fire call, getting the wreckage disposed of, and a few thousand dollars more. We used the extra money to take our second and final trip west that summer.
There was speculation around town that if our children didn’t start the fire, and at that time I was assured by the girls that they were innocent, that it was started from one of two other causes. The fire chief suggested that a bird might have carried a still burning cigarette butt into the barn. He said fires had been known to have been caused by that kind of thing. The other, unspoken possibility, some of it whispered, was that Dan Hale’s daughter might have started it to get back at her father. She was somewhat insane, and was constantly accusing Hale of abusing her. She never explained what he was doing to her, however.
Two or three other barns in the neighborhood burned that year, and people began thinking the Hale girl was a fire bug. There never was any proof. She was finally institutionalized, and while in the facility, she committed suicide by setting herself ablaze.
After that barn burned, our interest in the property waned. We had, by then, had so much trouble there and had become sure that the place was quite haunted. We started thinking about selling and moving on. We didn’t go right away, however, and our troubles were far from over at that place.