Contributed by: CBrining
From The Altanic City Press Published: Thursday, January 01, 2009
By EMILY PREVITI Staff Writer, 609-272-7221
GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP - A gray beam cut through a hole in Ted Chivalette's roof, illuminating his weathered face as he picked his way through his living room Wednesday morning. It barely brightened the charred space, blocked from outside light by plywood.
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Chivalette, 67, bought the house in 1989 and had lived there until Tuesday morning, when flames destroyed the inside of the single-story stucco home, despite the efforts of seven local first response agencies. Investigators were still there Wednesday afternoon trying to figure out how it started, according to acting Galloway Township Fire Chief Joe Blazo.
Chivalette wants to rebuild on the 2.5-acre parcel at 142 S. Pitney Road but will not see the project to fruition if the doctors are right.
Just as his youngest daughter was finishing a bout with breast cancer, Chivalette was diagnosed with colon, rectal and liver cancer and given two years to live, according to his wife, Josie.
That deadline passed in September, and he expects to live through next summer, Ted Chivalette said.
"We were going away because he's been off chemo for two months and is probably going to go back on in January, ... and he could drive, instead of me, he was excited to do that," Josie Chivalette said.
The couple had been driving out of Philadelphia en route to visit Ted Chivalette's cousin in Concord, Va., when his cell phone rang. It was the first of many calls telling them a fire was destroying their home.
"Everybody called me - my brother-in-law, my other brother-in-law, who's a fire warden, heard it on the scanner," he said. "My family, they're like the Atlantic City Press: Tell one and everyone knows."
The Chivalettes said they are grateful for the friends and relatives who flocked to their engulfed home Tuesday morning and were waiting for the couple when they returned.
Two stopped by Wednesday morning, one pointing out that it was a blessing he and Josie, who is director of program services at Atlantic Cape Community College Worthington Atlantic Center in Atlantic City, were out of the house. So was their dog, which was at their daughter's house during the two-day trip.
"Maybe I could have saved it," Chivalette said. "Who the hell knows?"
The flames did not touch the equipment and ancillary buildings behind the house Chivalette uses for his concrete-pumping business, and also spared the porch and the indoor pool he said built himself.
Everything else, except some clothes and a pair of white sneakers, which he wore Wednesday along with a borrowed blue sweatshirt, Chivalette lost in the fire.
"I have a lot of good friends, a lot of good family," he said. "I have a good support system. Everyone's just been very good, and I can't say enough about the people of Galloway."
In addition to aid from neighbors, the Red Cross and fire and rescue personnel, the Chivalettes got a $500 donation from municipal employees through the Galloway Community Caregiving Program.
At least half of the about 150 people working for the township donate $10 or more every month to the program, which buoys residents beset by disaster, medical or financial disaster, according to deputy director of community development Beth McCann, who is vice president of the committee.
For now, the Chivalettes are staying at the Residence Inn by Marriott in Egg Harbor Township on a three-week voucher from the Red Cross. After that, they will have to find a more permanent place while they rehabilitate their house.
"It's been a tough couple of years, but something good will come from everything," Josie Chivalette said. "We belive that."
E-mail Emily Previti: EPreviti@pressofac.com
Elwood Fire Rescue
https://www.evfc160.com/main/article.php/20090102100600210