After a fire destroyed their home on Perrysville Road in Danville in early November, claiming the lives of at least five of their cats, Melody and John Williams are asking for help from the community to locate a few others who may have escaped.
Though they lost everything in the fire — which took 20 different fire trucks from the Lynch, Bismarck, Westville, Perrysville, Tilton, Catlin, Georgetown, Cayuga, and Carroll fire protection districts more than 12 hours to extinguish — their primary concern now is finding their missing cats.
When John smelled smoke on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 4, he ran out to see what was wrong, he said.
“I got up Sunday morning, took a shower and got ready to go to church and I was sitting in a recliner watching the news. I looked out the window and I saw white. At first, I thought it was rain,” Jim said. “I opened the door and I could smell smoke.
Williams said he walked around the side of the house to the barn where he saw their camper up in flames.
“The whole thing was on fire. We had high winds that morning coming out of the east, so the fire was going towards the barn,” Williams said. He worried the fire would spread from the camper to the barn and then to the house. “Sure enough that’s what it did. So I ran back into the house, screaming to everyone to get out.”
“Everything’s gone,” Melody said. “But we all got out alive.” Melody and their adult son Jason escaped the fire in their pajamas — Jason barefoot. Quinn Hazelbaker, a long-time family friend who was staying with the family while she dealt with some medical issues, also escaped without injury.
Hazelbaker — who rescues and rehomes stray cats — says she scrambled to grab as many cats as she could as she was running out of the house.
“We had a mama and three babies in a cage in the heated barn, so I yelled at John to go get the cats. I grabbed these two babies and then I got my hands on two more, but their cat Theon got out of my hands before I could get him in a crate,” Hazelbaker said.
One additional cat survived the fire because a fireman tossed him in a metal shed on the property, saving his life, they said.
In the days after the fire, the family stayed in a hotel provided by the Red Cross. They had nothing but the smokey, dirty clothes on their back, so they were grateful to receive clothing and other necessities from family and friends, including a large donation collected by the staff at Danville Public Library where Williams works part-time in the reference department.
“We’re overwhelmed with the generosity and response of the church and our family, of the community and strangers, and my co-workers at the library,” Melody said as tears began falling down her cheeks. “It was what I call sacrificial donations. My co-workers dug deep in their pockets.”
For now, the group and Hazelbaker’s two surviving cats are staying in an extended-stay motel provided by their insurance company until at least Jan. 1, 2025. They aren’t sure what the future holds after that.
“There is no plan. We’re going day by day,” Melody said. She and her husband, both 71 years old, have been married for 50 years, and John recently retired. “At a time when we should be enjoying retirement, you know, we’re starting again,” she said. “But God is with us and we’re able to carry on with the help of family and friends and all that.”
“Our cats are missing. That’s why I want to get the word out. That’s the most important thing to me,” Hazelbaker said. “We really want our cats found.”
Over the weekend, the family was able to locate the body of one of the missing cats in the wreckage. Theon, a white cat with a light brown tail and spots; Lion, a yellow cat; and Angel, a black and white long-haired cat, are all still missing.
Anyone with information on the missing pets is encouraged to reach out to Hazelbaker at 217-474-4263.