FARMINGTON – Support for an elderly man has been pouring in since he was burned out of his home early Wednesday. So far people have donated a mobile home, well tiles, furniture, a concrete pad, clothes, backhoe work and more.
Quintin Smith, a veteran wounded in the Korean War, had been sleeping when fire ripped through his older-style trailer with several additions and large workshop. Smith worked on small engines and computers.
Smith escaped in his night wear and saved his vehicle and that’s about all.
His neighbor Richard Paul has been working to coordinate donations along with Lois and Jon Bubier and Farmington Code Enforcement Officer Steve Kaiser.
The Bubiers donated a 12- by 50-foot mobile home on High Street and needs to be moved to the site on Poverty Lane, which is a dirt road off High Street between the former Franklin Shoe shop, where Smith had previously worked, and Sherwood Apartments.
“I’ve known about the man all my life,” Lois Bubier said. “I grew up on High Street. He had nothing. Now he really has nothing. We’re not rich people, but we want to help him out.”
The mobile home has everything he needs, refrigerator, stove and washer, she said.
She’s contacted W.A. Mitchell furniture makers and a new table and chairs were delivered to go in the trailer.
“We still don’t have a bed,” she said. “And we still need someone to move the trailer.”
Three well tiles are being donated so he can have running water, which he didn’t have before the fire.
He’s kind of a forgotten person in the community, she said.
Bubier said she was at the site Thursday night and Smith was looking down at a charred book titled “My Life.”
He wrote the book, she added.
“He seems really happy about the trailer,” she said. “He said God was taking care of him’ because he didn’t think the trailer would last another year.”
Paul said USA Concrete of Phillips has agreed to donate a concrete pad for the trailer.
Smith has plenty of clothes now, Paul said.
Smith is living in Paul’s camper trailer now, and Paul has given him a portable bed.
Paul has been canvassing for donations of items to help Smith get back on his feet.
Someone has volunteered to do some backhoe/loader work to help clean up the site, Kaiser said.
Kaiser contacted the Department of Environmental Protection and because the buildings burned, a lot of the debris could be buried on site following the state’s guidelines.
Stuff that can’t be buried, he said, will be disposed of appropriately.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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