With the advent of spring comes the faint stirrings of hope for a Greenport woman who lost everything during the brutal cold of winter.
Peggy Richards and her partner Ken MacAlpin have found a new home, an apartment on 5th street in Greenport; they will move in today.
The home is a welcome new beginning for the pair, who saw their home ravaged in a blazing inferno in February; the couple, who found shelter in the parsonage of Richards’ church, First Universalist Church of Southold, were faced with the unthinkable as they watched the church burn to the ground only a few weeks later in March.
And, after holding tightly to the belief that they’d find their missing pets, all hope was lost when they discovered the lifeless bodies of their dog and cat in the rubble of their former home.
But spring brings new beginnings.
“We’re baaack,” MacAlpin wrote in an email to SoutholdLOCAL yesterday.
The community has opened their arms to the fire survivors, kicking off a collection drive and a Go Fund Me page.
However, with a new apartment, they still need “small, light furniture” that can be carried easily upstairs to their small two-bedroom apartment, Richards said. Currently, they have only an inflatable mattress.
“We need the basics, down to spices in the kitchen, as well as fans and air conditioning units for the warmer weather coming. I am always hot. House plants — I want house plants, as there is no yard.”
Richards also plans to start a new garden on her Kaplan Avenue property, so she’d love some gardening tools, as well.
Both wish to express their deepest gratitude to all who have stepped up to help. “This is our next chapter. We are close enough to our property to supervise and continue to be in our own community,” Richards said. “We are very grateful to my church community for the chance to regroup while we stayed at the parsonage. It will be nice to be back in a space we can call our own.”
