FORKS — Her father’s Vietnam pictures, her grandfather’s antiques and countless other irreplaceable family heirlooms went up in flames when the house Terra Priest and her fiance lived in burned in Forks last month.
Since the June 28 fire, Priest and Travis Chapman have been staying in various places in Port Angeles.
All of their belongings are gone, including everything she needed for her business.
“I am a hairstylist — all of my stuff was in the house,” she said.
“I also have a small card-making business, and thousands of dollars of equipment was burned.”
The home belonged to Chapman’s grandmother, and Priest said it was uninsured.
The house at 832 Whitcom-Diimmell Road burned at about 10:40 p.m. June 28, and nothing was salvageable.
The fire is being investigated as suspicious by the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office because no one was home at the time and electricity was not hooked up to the structure.
Under investigation
Priest said although the couple were living there off and on — and all of their belongings were there — they could not afford the electric bill and allowed power to be turned off, planning to reinstate it during the winter.
She said she and Chapman had lived there since November.
“I took all of my family’s antiques up there because I wanted to make it feel like a home,” she said.
“Now I wish I hadn’t done that.”
She said her father, who had fought in the Vietnam War, had passed on some photos from his military days, and all of those were lost as well.
“I can’t even explain the emotions and feelings, the feeling of loss,” she said.
“I don’t even own a blanket anymore.”
‘Irreplaceable things’
Also among the things lost was a picture frame once owned by her great-grandfather’s grandfather.
“The money value is not important — it is the irreplaceable things that is hard,” she said.
She said she and Chapman are trying to scrounge together some funds so she can buy new haircutting scissors or are searching for donations of materials so she can at least begin to earn some money again.
“Everything I own is gone,” she said.
“I have nothing left.”
To contact Priest, phone 360-565-6777 or write to her at her mother’s address, 126 W. 14th St., Port Angeles, WA 98362
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
