LIVERMORE – Brenda and Lee Yeaton are looking for a place for their family to live in the Livermore and Livermore Falls area so their children can continue to attend SAD 36 schools.
The family’s home on Hathaway Hill Road in Livermore was heavily damaged by fire Thursday night, most of their belongings were destroyed and the house is now unlivable.
The family had been staying at a Lewiston motel since the fire, Brenda Yeaton said Monday. She visited the Rural Community Action Ministry in Leeds on Monday, and said agency representatives are going to let them stay at a shelter in Leeds. The family planned to move from the motel either Monday night or today.
The children will return to school today, Yeaton said.
She doesn’t want to take the children, who range in age from 4 to 13, out of SAD 36 since the children have adjusted well to the programs there.
“Livermore and Livermore Falls schools have been wonderful with them,” she said.
The four girls and a boy, Chelsea Goding, 13, Alta Goding, 12, Dakota Smith, 8, Cheyenne Yeaton, 6, and Angel Yeaton, who turned 4 Sunday, were doing some stretching after stepping out of a van Monday in the Cumberland Farms parking lot in Livermore Falls.
Brenda Yeaton had lived in the area previously before moving to Lewiston for several years, then moving back to Livermore in August. She said the family has nothing.
“We need everything,” she said. “What wasn’t burned was damaged by smoke and water. We’re really looking for a home. We’re just thankful everyone’s trying so hard.”
The United Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross has been “really, really great.” In addition to putting them up in a Lewiston motel, the Red Cross chapter gave the family some money to buy clothes, she said.
The school called Monday and said it had some things the family could have, Yeaton said.
“I lost my birds, Clyde and Bonnie, in the fire,” Dakota Smith piped in as he stood near his mother.
The family of seven and Yeaton’s older son and his family all escaped unharmed from the fire.
“We smelled smoke, and my husband went upstairs and touched the door and it was hot,” she said. “We got everybody out.”
They were able to rescue one kitten and a dog but a mother cat, two kittens and the birds perished.
“The firefighters were all wonderful,” she said, “and the neighbors were great, too. They brought out blankets for us to keep warm.”
The fire reported at 9:41 p.m. Thursday is believed to have started in the garage and spread into the attic above the kitchen.
“What we’d like more than anything is to rebuild,” Lee Yeaton said. “They love this area. They like it here.”
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