CRYSTAL LAKE – After her home burned down in November, Shirley Polk didn’t know that the key to getting it back was nestled in the soot and burnt wood of her former bedroom.
It wasn’t until the next day she learned that sitting in a case in a smoke- and water-damaged closet were the plans to her home, where about nine people had lived before the fire.
In the two months since losing her home at 6015 Blue Court in unincorporated Crystal Lake, finding those plans has given her the most hope she’ll be able to rebuild and be back at home by the end of the year.
“Now we have a starting point,” Shirley Polk said. “We will use that. We knew this was going to be our home. We just fell in love with it. It had everything we asked for. Why change it? I want to end my days there.”
The family spent a month at the Holiday Inn in Crystal Lake after an explosion followed by flames leveled their home Nov. 3. Crystal Lake Fire Rescue Department officials said a space heater might have been to blame. The Polks moved into a rental home in Crystal Lake about a month ago.
“It’s OK,” 20-year-old Jaime Polk said of their current living situation. “It’s not like a home to me, because for 19 years I lived in the same home, but we could be on the street. So I’m grateful.”
The Polks lived in the home for 23 years. Shirley raised more than 20 foster children with her husband, Richard, who died six years ago. They adopted six.
Shirley Polk still grapples with the loss of the photos and family heirlooms that filled her home. The trunk Shirley Polk’s grandmother had when she emigrated from Sweden, her father’s U.S. Army uniform and the blue suit her mother wore when they were married all went with the house.
She said she sometimes visits an antiques store in Crystal Lake to feel like she’s in her home.
“I’m trying,” Shirley Polk said. “I just try to look at the positives. We all walked out of that house. I lost my two best friends, my puppies, but all my kids are here.”
Taking her 6-year-old grandson Jayden to school pulls her out of bed every morning. Then, she starts to tackle the tasks of the day: sorting through receipts for the insurance company, picking up other kids from school or work and working with demolition permits.
The community has rallied behind the Polks. A GoFundMe.com account that remains active has garnered them more than $10,000. The First Methodist Church in Crystal Lake helped, as did Prairie Grove Elementary School, Prairie Ridge High School and BCU, where Shirley Polk banks.
And while insurance is helping the family rebuild, some financial burdens remain.
The only family member injured in the blaze, Joe Polk, 35, has $20,000 in medical bills after spending a day in the hospital being treated for smoke inhalation and a cut on his right arm. His brother, 18-year-old John, pulled him from a basement window after they heard an explosion rock the house.
Joe Polk said he went back to what used to be his bedroom Wednesday to see whether anything had survived. He found his copy of the Star Wars Trilogy.
“If my brother didn’t pull me out of the window, I’d be dead,” He said. “That’s why I’m not stressed out about the things. It’s just stuff. It’s replaceable.”
The hardest part of the fire has been how it’s divided the family, they said. Joe Polk moved into his own place after the fire, as did Rich, 41. A family friend who was living there moved. Still living together are Jaime, 21-year-old Tony, and Steven, 30, who still live in the home with Shirley, Jayden and John.
“We always ate together,” Shirley Polk said. “Now it’s everybody’s trying to get a ride here, a ride there. The family dynamic is not the same. I want things to go back a little bit more normal.”
For Shirley Polk, there is hope things will get back to normal. It’s drawn on a set of papers that, like her faith, managed to make it out of the fire.
“God works in mysterious ways,” Shirley Polk said. “You just have to follow the path. ... When God closes a door, he opens a window. I choose to look out the window and see what path he’s going to take me down.”
