Help the Turner family rebuild after Marshall fire

On Dec. 30, 2021, our mother Shelagh Turner lost her home of 27 years during Colorado’s most devastating wildfire. In the span of a few hours, the Marshall Fire tore through Louisville and reduced her neighborhood to ashes. The structures may be gone but her love for Louisville remains. Shelagh raised three children in her home just south of Harper Lake at 973 Arapahoe Circle and taught thousands of students during her 33 years as a K-6 teacher, most of which were spent at Louisville Middle School educating generations of students on language arts and reading. Louisville is her home, and we’d like to ask your help so she can begin to rebuild her life in the town she loved.

Our street just south of Harper Lake (picture from the Denver Post)

 

Our community was the kind of place where neighbors felt more like family, spending summers together at the pool and taking evening walks to Davidson Mesa or Harper Lake. The neighbor up the block grew pears and apples, the family down the street would drop off homemade muffins, and someone would always shovel the sidewalk for the elderly man on the corner each snowfall. Neighborhood children raced through the streets on rickety tricycles and learned to ride bicycles in the cul-du-sac at the end of the block. “Mrs. Turner,” as so many know her by, always stops to talk with a former student or parent and remembers details like who won her classroom Spelling Bee or starred in her annual Greek mythology play.

After the fire, Shelagh returned to 973 Arapahoe Circle to find only charred traces of her life. A ceramic pot still marks the stoop that led decades of costumed children up to her door for candy on Halloweens. One piece of a swing set stands lonely and blackened in what was the backyard. The once familiar stove that, days before, cooked Shelagh’s famous oatmeal pancakes on Christmas morning is now unrecognizable, melted and mangled alongside pipes and concrete. The tangibles may be burnt and gone, but the experiences they held live on in memory—the twinkling of lights and Christmas ornaments, the smell of a freshly carved pumpkin, the sound of laughter on a squeaky swing set, the sticky taste of syrup. 973 Arapahoe Circle held decades of happiness, and Shelagh hopes to rebuild her life among her family, friends, and neighbors. Please donate what you can to help Shelagh stay in the community she loves.

 

This is a video of our neighborhood. Footage of our street starts at 1:54.