Front Porch: Wildfires prompt thoughts about what’s irreplaceable

A metal box.

A three-ring binder.

A copper teakettle.

Laurie Klein’s great-grandma Bierkness brought the teakettle with her on the boat when she immigrated to the United States from Norway in the 1890s.

The weighty kettle survived the long voyage and resides within Klein’s Deer Park home.

The binder contains recipes written in her mother’s hand, and the metal box is also filled with favorite family recipes.

In August, when the Oregon Road fire swept through north Spokane County, Klein and her husband prepared to evacuate. When my friend described loading their vehicles, I asked her what she packed.

Along with clothes, photos and important papers, she mentioned the above items.

Taken aback, I realized out of all the possible things she could carry with her, those three things were irreplaceable.

Thankfully, my friend didn’t have to evacuate, and her home was spared, but our conversation got me thinking – what would I salvage if our home was threatened by wildfire.

Curious, I posed the question on social media.

Heather Clark said she’d grab her grandmother’s baby portrait, her Paddington Bear and the afghan her mom made for her before she died.

Sandy Tarbox would take a small cedar box containing her dad’s watch, comb and glasses, as well as her mom’s skate key and a rock she’d painted.

“I’d grab the last gift my husband gave me before he died - a necklace with a sweet poem engraved on the back,” Luanne Gehrig said.

My friend Beth Bollinger wouldn’t want to lose the silverware her grandma bequeathed her or the wine glasses that belonged to her great-grandmother.

“If I don’t have time to pack them all, at least take a couple,” she said.

Christy DeViveiros hoped to be able save her collection of Camp Sweyolakan memorabilia, much from the 1960s, some from the 1930s, and even an item from 1922.

“Included would be wooden plaques, copper bookends, pastel chalk drawings in a Count Book from 1932, songbooks, poetry books, bracelets, pins awarded to my family through the years and endless scrapbooks recounting special times at camp,” she said. “I even have an unopened box of Camp Fire mints from about 1960.”

After reading these replies, I wandered from room to room in our home, pondering what I’d want to cram into our vehicles if had to prepare for evacuation.

My mother’s Noritake china Dad purchased for her when he was stationed in Japan is precious to me. So is the silverware she bought one piece at a time before she married. Yet those things could likely be found on websites like replacement.com.

But her wedding ring that my dad had customized several years before he died and her beautiful gold bracelet watch? I would absolutely take those.

I eyed four medium-sized plastic storage bins, one for each son. The bins hold their Baby Books, their first artwork and schoolwork I thought someday their kids would like to see.

Would I heft those out to my car?

Then I remembered the box under my bed. It’s filled with cards and letters from friends and family – at least 40 years’ worth of sentiment.

And what about my recipes?

Many of them are on my computer and backed up in the Cloud, but not Mom’s handwritten index cards.

So many people in our community lost similar precious things during this year’s spate of wildfires, but amazingly only two died.

Their lives are irreplaceable.

I’m thankful we’ve never received those frightening alert messages and had to prepare to leave our home. I know that if we do, however, as long as my husband, sons, grandkids and cats are OK, I will be, too.

Even so, I’m making time to scan Mom’s recipes into my computer.

Cindy Hval can be reached at dchval@juno.com. Hval is the author of “War Bonds: Love Stories from the Greatest Generation” (Casemate Publishers, 2015) available at Auntie’s Bookstore and bookstores nationwide.