Family Project Kelley Skotland And The Ziegler Family Raise A Home From Hard Work And Committment

Of all that stood between Kelley Skotland and a home of her own, a rocky, trash-covered building site was the least of it.

Single, 24 and raising four children, including a son with cerebral palsy and twin infants, she outpaced 16 competing families to qualify for a Habitat for Humanity lot at E961 Hartson.

Only one other Habitat family reached their 100 hours of sweat equity sooner. “And they were a two-parent family,” said Dia Hadley, Habitat’s executive director.

Then, the October week construction was to begin, the volunteer builders, the Ziegler family and their company, Ziegler Lumber Co., were hit by a terrible loss.

Debra Ziegler, daughter-in-law of Ziggy’s founder and wife of vice president Neil Ziegler, was killed in a car crash on U.S. Highway 2.

The builders were grieving, the ground was freezing, the rocks tenacious.

But Vern Ziegler says you keep your commitments. And so the family and their longtime employees have kept theirs.

This week, Skotland and the Ziegler workers will complete the house on Hartson. After the Habitat dedication Feb. 11, Skotland will push her son Tim, 7, and his wheelchair into the new accessible home along with his brother, AJ, 3, and 8-month-old twins, Jordan and Chelsie.

The more than 100 Ziegler Lumber Co. employees who took turns framing, drywalling and roofing will return to their jobs in Spokane and North Idaho.

Jim Slawter is sorry to see it end. A Ziegler’s purchasing agent who supervised employees at the site along with Bob Aho, a Ziegler training coordinator, he enjoyed the work and the mission.

“Getting to do this for three months has just been a blessing,” he said.

At times, a mixed blessing. The rocky, uneven lot, bought for $4,500 at the county auction, was covered with garbage when crews began. Ziegler employees hauled off three dump trucks full of trash ($900 in dump fees) and used heavy equipment to level the site. They poured concrete themselves and even called Skotland and her children over to record their handprints in it.

The result is a four-bedroom home with gray vinyl siding, full of light and space far beyond the cramped basement apartment where Skotland and her children have been living. A super-size bathroom, pocket doors and an additional bedroom are among the touches to accommodate Tim’s wheelchair and other needs.

The Zieglers volunteered to build Habitat for Humanity’s 28th Spokane home through their friend Bob Panther, a member of the Habitat board of directors.

The Zieglers are one of Spokane’s oldest families, having been here since William Ziegler Sr. logged along the Spokane River and ranched on the Little Spokane in 1882.

His grandsons, Vern and Ernest Jr., founded Zig’s electric and plumbing in Spokane in 1969 with Dave Moore. Vern also founded Ziegler Lumber Co. in Hillyard in 1965. His four sons, Reid, 35, Neil, 34, Dean, 33, and Karl, 31, all work in the business. Stores and affiliated stores run by sons and first cousins stretch from Vancouver, Wash., to Rapid City, S.D.

“My father taught me that what you take out of a community you have a responsibility to put back,” said Vern Ziegler. But he attributes the Habitat project to his wife of 36 years, Mary.

A “gentle guide” for the company who is a longtime community volunteer herself, Mary Ziegler had envisioned the house as a family project that would include company employees who could train on building materials.

The family’s plans to spend significant time on the project were abruptly curtailed by the Oct. 8 accident, as the relatives moved to help Neil and his three young children.

Mary Ziegler’s brother, Slawter, Aho and such veteran employees as Earl Landrus stepped in alongside Habitat volunteers. They all got to know Kelley Skotland.

To qualify for the Habitat home, Skotland spent 500 hours working on this and other houses. She helped wire, drywall and install a bathroom vent in a roof. She attended legal seminars and home maintenance classes. And she’ll pay a mortgage (about $200 a month) for the next 20 years before the home is hers.

But attorney Brad Chinn, her Habitat-assigned adviser, isn’t worried about her not making it.

“She’s highly motivated,” Chinn said.

“I’m doing it for my kids,” said Skotland. “Timothy is going to be able to do a lot more for himself in that house.”

Skotland came to Spokane from Moses Lake seven years ago after her first child was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Cut off from oxygen, Timothy was left with cerebral palsy.

The dark-eyed boy can read and write alongside his classmates at Roosevelt Elementary. But he cannot walk. Grabbing him under his arms, his petite mother carries him wordlessly from room to room.

Skotland admits she’s the kind to take a hammer away from someone and do it herself. The kind to ask why everyone working on the site had a blue Ziggy’s baseball jacket except her. The kind whose determination prompted Vern Ziegler to buy her one.

“She earned it,” he said.

The four children’s father, Luis Yzaguirre, cares for them while Skotland works on the house. He is still involved with the family, but the couple has postponed marriage in part because Skotland, who is on welfare, fears for her finances and medical benefits if they marry. Yzaguirre’s $5 an hour job at a gas station does not provide benefits.

It’s an arrangement Jim Slawter makes no bones about not approving. A devout Christian who has helped his First Church of the Open Bible build homes in the Philippines, Slawter would have gone overseas on another building project this year had it not been for the Habitat project.

He’s glad he stayed.

So is Skotland. The Christian-based Habitat has had more influence on her life than she ever expected.

“I really was never into religion before, and Jim and the others have really opened my eyes,” she said. “I thank God most of all that this is happening.”

Standing in the kitchen where south-facing windows collect sunbeams, Skotland turns her face to the warmth. No more dirt hills to push a wheelchair up to the bus stop. No more dark rooms.

“You can give money to an organization, but you don’t see it, you don’t feel it,” said Vern Ziegler. “This was something hands-on.”