The New Years fire of 1966 as remembered by Lynell.
You'd mentioned Papa Mason's sermon about just before the pond went dry, the fire started going out. Here's what was going on at that time with Dad and Calvin. They went and got in the big hay truck that they moved away from the house out by loading chute. He and Calvin had gone to the truck because he felt they couldn't do anything more. Dad was crying and praying as he watched everything he'd worked for go up in flames. He said, he told the Lord, "It is all yours, you gave it to us, it belongs to you" and right away, the flames started dying down.
Another interesting thing from an eight year old's point of view..... Remember this was all in the wee hours of the morning, and yet it seemed the whole town was out there. Cars parked all the way down the road to the highway. When Forrest and Claudia took my mother to the hospital, they left me at their house with Barbara. I remember feeling so strange, not knowing what was going on. I thought it was neat to be in Barbara's bedroom with all that teenage stuff little girls like to see.