MEXICO – A Mexico woman is determined to rebuild her house from the inside out when insurance money arrives. But the image of the Virgin Mary that appeared on a wall is not going anywhere, not if Veronica Dennis can help it.
Additionally, Dennis said Wednesday morning, she has no intention of selling the house she bought 11 years ago, the house that was destroyed by fire on Sunday morning when a space heater ignited a bed and a nearby dog bed.
“This is my house,” Dennis said adamantly, standing in the rain and wind outside the boarded-up structure at 4 Burton St.
“My neighbors wouldn’t appreciate it either if I sold the house and they turned it into a shrine. I will rebuild the interior, and, the image that’s on the wall is on paneling, so I will cut it out, and it will remain in the house,” she said.
But until she can begin renovating, Dennis said she was worried about people flocking to the house to see the image.
Family and friends began nailing plywood over windows and doors on Tuesday. More was going up Wednesday.
“My insurance company told me to board it up, and I’m getting (police) tape from the fire department, and No Trespassing signs. Anybody trespassing will be prosecuted,” Dennis said.
Mexico police Chief James Theriault said things have been quiet on Burton Street since the story broke about the image of the saint on a wall.
“We haven’t had any action up there,” he added. Police are keeping an eye on the place, as are neighbors, said Marlene Gile, who lives next door, on Wednesday morning
“This neighborhood’s good at watching, and, I told her I would keep an eye on the place,” she added.
Dennis said she had no idea of the potential notoriety that the Virgin Mary likeness could bring until she started getting phone calls.
“I said, Oh, my God! It’s going to turn into a three-ring circus,’ but I’m going to do what I have to, to protect my house. My main goal is to get a little stability back into my life, and get my family back together in one place,” she said.
As for the likeness, Dennis, who said she is Catholic, bristled when told that the Catholic Church might want to send someone to investigate the phenomenon.
“It’s personal to me, and I’m taking it for what it is,” she added.
Two of Dennis’s Burton Street neighbors, Marlene Gile and Jim McDonald, a Mexico firefighter, were also taking the image seriously while standing next door and talking.
“I saw the picture on her digital camera, and I knew right away what it was. She didn’t have to tell me,” Gile said. She gave the family sanctuary in her home and warm coffee, and made her phone available after they were displaced by the fire.
“This could put Mexico on the map,” McDonald said. “It is what it is, and I can’t tell you how it’s there,” he added.
McDonald said he’s seen images in snow and water, but nothing as defined as the Virgin Mary likeness in Dennis’ house.
He, too, worried about how Dennis could protect the image.
“Somebody’s got to give her advice. Collectors could come along and want to buy the house and preserve it. They say that if the right people get a hold of this, it will blow it right out of the water,” McDonald said.
In addition to the quirky fact that the fire and heat melted a television set, but didn’t harm a resin statue of the Virgin Mary on the floor, McDonald said there was another oddity that protected the kitchen wall image.
The fire started in the bedroom of Dennis’s 22-year-old daughter, Tausha, which was separated from the kitchen by a plastic sliding door.
“That little plastic door saved the kitchen. It stopped the fire from going that way,” something he finds very unusual, McDonald said.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he added.
Neither does Gile.
“To see something on the wall like that, I do believe there are higher beings, and that God sends a message sometimes that people don’t always know how to interpret, but it’s there.
“I just believe that God’s letting her know that she’s not alone. It means things will get better, and, like I told her, things will get better,” Gile said.
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