Fires are notorious for robbing people of their treasures. And when those things helped you hold on to vanishing memory, it's even worse.
That's what happened to George and Nan Griswold when a fire June 28 heavily damaged their house on Claridge Circle in Winston-Salem. "The tangible things are not as important as the memories," Nan Griswold said last week.
As the executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, she's been helping hurting people for years. The fire capped a trying time that's taken her to a whole new level of empathy.
In December, she and her husband learned that he has Alzheimer's disease. They moved into the Salemtowne retirement community, leaving behind the house on Claridge Circle where they'd lived since they were married in 1993. They left many of their possessions at the house as they had it renovated to sell.
By the time the Griswolds raced over from Salemtowne on June 28, the fire, caused by an electrical malfunction, had already taken many of those treasures. "These were the things that, when George would get to a stage, I knew he could still enjoy these things," Nan Griswold said. "My yearbook from Wake Forest. His yearbook from Yale.
"These were things that I know George and I could enjoy going through. You know, talking about his past, talking about his family."
Like the spouses of so many with Alzheimer's, she's been trying hard to help her husband hold on to memories as magical and fleeting as the dust on butterfly wings. The fire made that work all the harder.
Flames ravaged the commander's jacket that George Griswold wore when chasing German subs in World War II. "It showed up on the lawn, but it was all ragged," said George Griswold, a retired businessman.
He was most concerned about the papers left to him by his beloved great aunt, Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, a renowned art critic. "George just kept saying he wanted his papers, he wanted his papers," Nan Griswold said. Some of those papers were burned, she said, but some of them may be salvageable.
Nan Griswold lost the baby book, with all its photos, of her brother Robert, who died of an illness 20 years ago. The salvage company retrieved her family Bible, but the fire somehow erased the handwritten entries from family members.
The fire took the paints and brushes that George Griswold used for oils and watercolors.
The salvage company retrieved some items that sustained relatively little damage.
"It's amazing what they found," Nan Griswold said. They'll salvage furniture, kitchenware, a few antiques, as well as books and photos that they already had packed and ready to move.
Her mother's watch was saved, as was an ancient album with photos of her ancestors on both sides of the Civil War. Her great-grandfather, a Yankee major, met her great-grandmother in Richmond. Her sweetheart, a Rebel, had been killed in the war.
A few generations later, Nan Griswold grew up in Statesville. Her husband grew up in Greenwich, Conn.
The Griswolds plan to tear down what's left of their house and build a new one on the site to sell.
Friends, including one couple who lost their own home to fire, have helped the salvage company dig through the rubble. The Griswolds are thankful for that, for numerous calls and notes of support and for the simple fact that they weren't in the house when it burned.
They're thankful for other things as well. They've got photos from their courtship and marriage to savor. And "George's sense of humor is going to get us through this," Nan Griswold said. "He has this wonderful, dry New England wit."
He joked that "I don't know how to comment on Alzheimer's because I've never had it before."
They savor the time they have together. And she'll keep reminding him of the memories the fire stole.
■ John Railey writes local editorials for the Journal. He can be reached at jrailey@wsjournal.com.
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