Rising from the Ashes: Canton family rebuilds with help from community

On December 16, exactly ten months to the day after losing their house and nearly all of their belongings in a two-alarm fire that also claimed their elderly cat Patches, the Notkin family of Canton made their long-awaited return to 63 Trayer Road.

The house, which had to be completely rebuilt from the studs up, came with a few notable improvements, including a vaulted ceiling in the dining room and a beautiful new farmer’s porch. But it was essentially modeled after the original as part of a conscious effort to regain what they had lost – what Molly Notkin aptly refers to as the family’s “phoenix adventure.”

The Notkins' Trayer Road home had to be stripped down to the studs following a fire last February.

It’s been a difficult journey and it is still far from complete, but the Notkins’ “resurrection from the ashes” has given them hope and perspective at a time when two other families with Canton ties are in the midst of similar struggles: an Eagle Drive family who lost their four-month-old dog in a New Year’s Day blaze, and former CHS graduates Carey Doolan and Cliff Thompson, who lost their Scituate home due to a fast-moving fire during last month’s blizzard.

The good news, as the Notkins can surely attest, is that it really does get better – even if there is very little about the past 11 months that they would want to relive.

For Rick Notkin in particular, the toughest part was having to start from scratch and replace virtually everything they owned, which involved making “a million different decisions all at once.”

“Honestly, I’d still rather it be February 15, 2010 (the day before the fire broke out),” Rick admitted. “I thought this house was pretty good as it was.”

“It was hard work, just because it was everything,” added Molly. “Overwhelming is probably the most accurate description.”

Molly said they were able to save a few fabric items with the help of Prime Cleaners, as well as three pieces of furniture – including a table that was passed down from her great grandfather – thanks to Royal Finishing in Hyde Park. They also tried to scrub a few items clean themselves, but in most cases, they were unsuccessful.

“We didn’t try to salvage very much at all,” said Molly. “The functional things you can replace, and the sentimental things, well, there wasn’t much we could find to salvage.”

It also didn’t help matters that the Notkins, including sons Matt and Mike, were a family of self-proclaimed “pack rats.” They had owned, among other things, a “huge video collection” and over 4,200 books; and when the public adjuster finally completed his itemized inventory, it came in at a whopping 90 pages long.

Now that the house has been rebuilt, Molly said the family is “trying to be very intentional about what [they] bring back into the house.” At the same time, they are still in the process of “filling in the little spaces,” and they expect it to continue for the next several months.

“I know this might sound strange,” Molly said, “but I had a terrible time finding a really good pair of nail clippers that worked for me.”

And yet if the Notkins’ story proves anything, it’s that a recovery of this magnitude takes not only time and patience, but also lots of support from loved ones, neighbors, and the community at large – including, in some cases, complete strangers.

“All kinds of people have helped us,” said Molly. “All along, it’s been mind boggling.”

And the help poured in immediately, beginning on the day of the fire with the firefighters and police officers, who were very supportive from the moment they arrived.

“The fire department and police department were both really fabulous,” Molly said. “They took care of their business, but they were responding to the fact that this was someone’s home.”

When it became clear that the house would not be livable and that the Notkins would have to find a new temporary home, their two houses of worship – the United Church of Christ and Temple Beth David – decided to organize a joint “shower” to help stock their rental home with household items.

Canton High School, where Mike was a senior, also stepped up, providing the family with gift cards as well as emotional support. One of Mike’s teachers, George Farrell, even organized a video collection drive with the help of Facebook, calling it the “Notkin Film Restoration Project,” while an anonymous faculty member donated their 2006 CHS yearbook to Matt to replace the one he had lost in the fire.

There were countless other gestures of kindness: One of their neighbors on Trayer Road started cutting their grass when the house was still boarded up. Their contractor, who has been “awesome” throughout the entire rebuilding process, set up electricity in the house and brought dumpsters for the family to use months before the official start date of construction.

The Notkins moved back to their rebuilt home, complete with a new farmer's porch (above), on December 16.

“All kinds of people” loaned them furniture for their new apartment on Dedham Street. The letter carriers in both neighborhoods worked closely with one another to make sure the family received all of their mail. Molly said people even approached them on the street and handed them their phone numbers, offering whatever help they needed.

One morning, about two weeks after the fire, Molly went to her car and found a bag with an envelope inside it placed under her windshield wiper. Inside the envelope was a large sum of cash and a piece of paper with cutout letters that was made to look like a ransom note. It said something like: “Things look kind of bleak; it’s not as hard as it might seem.”

“We don’t even know who to thank because we don’t know where it came from,” said Molly, to this day still amazed by the anonymous gift.

In many ways, the Notkins are still trying to process all that has happened since that terrible February morning. Even now, there are days when they look around and see all of their shiny, new things, and it feels as if they are living in a stranger’s house. “Then again, in some ways,” said Rick, “it feels like we were never gone.”

“It sure hasn’t been easy,” said Molly, “and we’ve had lots and lots of help, but for now, we just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

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Posted by Jay Turner on Jan 13 2011. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.