PRAIRIE GROVE, Ark. — A Prairie Grove couple is rummaging through the ashes after a Sunday night fire burned down their family home.
Richard and Linda King say their family home caught fire on Jan. 14 , only making it out with themselves and their dog.
"I wasn't sleepy, which was a blessing because if I had been sleeping, I wouldn't have realized what was going on," Linda said. "I went outside and I opened the porch door. And then I looked back in the house, and I saw that smoke was coming more like underneath the stairwell of the basement."
The family built the home in 1997, raising their children and building their livelihood in Prairie Grove. The family explained that the fire took all their belongings including their mom's paintings, family photos and heirlooms, and their father's collectibles and business.
"This is where I was at, my husband and I, when we got married, and he proposed to me down in that basement," daughter Amy Bohn said. "My sister and I, we loved to write music as teenagers and in our 20s. There's a piano in the house that we wrote music on all the time."
Bohn said she was out shopping when she learned the news of the fire. She called her father's phone, but her mother responded.
"She started to describe the windows and the doors and the smoke was just billowing up through the top of the roof and out every part of the house, and she's just sobbing and I'm crying on the phone with her."
Bohn stayed on the phone with her mother as the home burned down. She explained that her parents had been on separate sides of the home and had to scream at each other to know they were okay.
Bohn and her husband joined her parents and a friend as they rummaged through the ashes to find any family heirlooms still intact.
"You just don't plan for something like this, you know, it happens so fast," Bohn said. "Seeing the entire house gone, just gone. Like there's nothing there. Just makes me think of how close it was for all of us as their kids and their grandkids and their family that we almost lost them."
"It's a different kind of pain losing your whole life's work like that," Linda said.
Yet, despite losing so much, it wasn't everything; they still had each other.
"It sounds crazy. And you know, my wife doesn't particularly like to hear it that way. But I'm happy. I'm happy that we're alive," Richard said.
"It's a lot to take in. That's not there. But all those memories still are," Bohn said.
The family expressed that they were thankful for the community as many have already reached out. Linda said someone had been waiting to help at the revenue office as they were renewing their ID's.
"He said, 'I'm passing this on forward. I was in Katrina, and people helped me. And I want to give this to you.' He says 'this, this sweater gave me a lot of joy,'" Linda explained.
"It's not over, it's just, it's just a new beginning. And you should never go down, always go up," Richard said.
In their time of need, the family said anyone looking to help can visit their GiveSendGo, provide clothing for the couple, donate any resources as they rebuild, and send any family memories they've captured through photo or video to the family.
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