| Sources |
- [S23] Atchley Funeral Home, (http://www.atchleyfuneralhome.com/), 30 Aug 2008.
James Herbert Owenby obituary
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 23 Jul 2010.
Fire destroys couple’s Spicer Lane home
by DEREK HODGES
Ashes and rubble are all that remain after fire destroyed the Spicer Lane home of Robert and Sandy Grubb in Sevierville. The couple escaped with their lives, faith and good humor, but little else.
SEVIERVILLE — As they watched their home and everything they owned consumed by ravenous flames early Friday morning, Robert and Sandy Grubb were certain of one thing.
“The good Lord’s going to take care of us,” Robert said as he surveyed what was left of the three-story Spicer Lane structure at mid-morning. “We’re going to be OK.”
Within just a few hours of Robert’s discovery that a fire had started in their upstairs bedroom, their faith was already bringing reward, though they joke it’s not the eternal kind yet. They were flooded with calls from fellow members of Sevierville First Baptist Church, a congregation Sandy’s been a part of all her life, offering help of every kind.
As fire departments from as far away as Seymour sent help battling the blaze, one of the flock came to offer the couple, who made it out with nothing but the night clothes on their backs, something to wear. As he did, Sandy realized the couple had lost the essential items of life, from purses and wallets to clothes and even eyeglasses. She was a bit bothered, but Robert quickly brought her back to faith.
“We’ll get some more clothes,” he said. “They make more every day.”
“Oh, do they?” she joked.
Robert woke up shortly after 5 a.m. and found a small fire burning in the floor of the bedroom. He quickly woke Sandy and the couple tried using a wet towel to kill the flames. Unfortunately, they soon found that did little more than fan the blaze, which was rapidly growing bigger around them.
“I told Sandy, ‘Let’s get out,’” Robert recalled. “We just knew we needed to get out.”
“It was blazing,” Sandy added.
The couple accounted for their pets and retreated as the flames started to spread to interior walls and the roof. They called for the fire department and started working to get their cars away from the blaze. When sheriff’s deputies arrived, they helped the couple push the vehicles down the long driveway, though they couldn’t act fast enough to save a pair sitting under and near a now-burning carport. They lost an Oldsmobile and Sandy’s PT Cruiser in the blaze.
They were both thankful to have escaped with their lives, though they wish they could have brought a little more with them.
“We lost everything,” Sandy said. “All our pictures of our kids are gone. But, I guess we’ll just do what we have to do.”
There was insurance on the house and the Cruiser, and Robert is confident they’ll be able to rebuild on the site they’ve lived on since 1987. They’ll miss the things, like the computer Sandy mourns or the plastic canoe that Robert was surprised to see melted into the hillside, but they’re certain, with faith, they’ll make it through this trial.
“We’ll build us something new,” Robert said. “We can stay with my brother who lives here in town and our daughter has an extra room. We’ll do something else for a while. It’ll just take some time. It was a nice house. We loved it.”
“It was our home,” Sandy reminded him.
The Sevier County Fire Department led the effort to snuff the flames, calling for assistance from others including Seymour Volunteer Fire Department and Sevierville Fire Department. Since the home is in the county, the Sheriff’s Department also responded, as did the county’s Wildland Task Force, which watched to ensure the flames didn’t spread to the nearby woods and put other structures at risk.
No cause is known at this time for the blaze.
dhodges@themountainpress.com
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(Age ~ 53 years)