From the moment she found out she was pregnant, 20-year-old Shyanne Wallace “started working for me and my son and what we needed.’’
She lost it all in a burst of flames that consumed her apartment and three other units at 1221 West Harper St. in Poplar Bluff shortly after midnight on Feb. 7.
Wallace, the mother of a two-year-old son named Joshua, lived in the apartment where an electrical fire started inside a kitchen wall, according to Poplar Bluff fire officials. She was sleeping with her son in a nearby room when she heard a loud pop. She grabbed her son who was only wearing a diaper and fled the building without wearing shoes. Her two puppies in crates in the apartment died in the fire.
“When we were running out of the house, the windows were blowing out from the heat,’’ said Wallace, an employee at Wendy’s on Westwood Boulevard. “It spread really fast. I was screaming ‘Fire! Everybody get out!’ because I saw how fast it was spreading.”
For the next hour, she watched in shock as the home she made for herself and her son was consumed by the blaze.
“It is by far one of the worst days of my life,’’ she said. “I worked hard for everything I had.’’
But she says what happened next was equally stunning: she was, in a sense, rescued by the kindness of strangers who responded to posts published on Facebook by her former Poplar Bluff High School teacher and her grandmother.
“The amount of help I got was shocking,’’ said Wallace.
Small gifts of cash adding up to $600 arrived. Others donated clothing for her son, and beds for both her and her son.
“She had made a post asking for prayers, and if anyone had a few things that she might could use,’’ said Heather Rommel, 34, a math teacher at Poplar Bluff High School. “I asked her if it was okay for me to share that post and ask for help for her instead of advocating for herself.”
“She is very sweet,’’ she said of Wallace. “She’s always been like that. ...She thanked me profusely just for even making a post.”
Red Cross enabled Wallace to stay in a hotel room, then she spent several more nights at a relative of her son’s. With the help of the property manager Keith Willcut, a principal of KW Property Management which owns the destroyed unit, she managed to find a new home – a three-bedroom mobile home – within a week.
Willcut said tenants from the four units destroyed have all found homes. One moved back in with family, and the other two rented other units co-owned and managed by Willcut. Wallace found her mobile home through a friend of Willcut’s who owns rental properties.
“She didn’t have renters’ insurance and so when that burned, she lost everything,’’ Willcut said.
For Wallace, who was raised by her grandparents and whose six younger siblings live in foster care, the starting over continues.
On Tuesday, she visited Hope International in Bernie with the hope of getting living room and kitchen supplies – “the main stuff you need for a home,’’ she said.
The nonprofit organization, which helps people facing loss due to crisis or disaster, is donating furniture to Wallace from their Bernie thrift store’s warehouse.
“With her having a fire report, we know that she has a legitimate need,’’ said Kristin Stevens, 30, the executive director of Hope International, which in addition to providing used household goods to those in need also provides free food, and dental services to the public. “We know that she’s in need.’’
The nondenominational religious nonprofit provides assistance to “anybody who’s been in a crisis or a life-altering situation,’’ said Stevens, who was directing a food drive while talking on the phone. “We just say, ‘Give us a list of what you need,’ and if we have it, we give it.’’
The organization, which has distributed two million pounds of food in Southeast Missouri since COVID-19 erupted, relies on donations from business and civic “partners’’ as well as individual donors.
Though friends have urged her to start a “GoFundMe’’ account, Wallace says she won’t do that on her own.
“You never realize how much people can care and help you,’’ said Wallace, who described feeling “blessed.”
“A new opportunity was given to me to start all over again,’’ she said. “I’ve been saying for over a year now that I could always use a fresh start. But I never expected it to come like this.”
A week after her apartment burned down, she says a couple went through the drive-thru at Wendy’s and gave her a brochure on “understanding crisis and how God makes them happen for a reason. I feel like maybe this is my opportunity for a fresh start.’’
You can contact or donate to Shyanne Wallace through Facebook at https://m.facebook.com/shyannejoshua.bosticdavis.
To find out more about Hope International, visit https://hope-international.us/.