Statewide support warms family left homeless by fire at Chester

ARGYLE — Thanks to donations from people across the state, Raymond Jordan Jr. and his family, who were left homeless when a fire destroyed their Chester home in January, are starting to get back on their feet.

“When you are down and out and feel like you don’t have anyone in this world and people help you, it is something else,” said Jordan as tears streamed down his cheeks.

Despite the bitter weekend temperatures, Jordan, his wife, Donna, and their two small children were warm and cozy in a home on Route 116 in Argyle thanks to Manley and Dolly Sharpe. The couple, who have the house for sale, offered it to the Raymonds shortly after the Jan. 11 fire.

“These people next door (the Sharpes) came from God. You just don’t meet people like this every day,” Jordan said. He said the couple contacted them after reading about the fire and offered the house.

“All we have to pay is for oil and lights. That is it, can you believe it? I just cried. We have a nice, warm house. Thank God for people like the Sharpes,” said Donna Jordan.

The generosity did not stop with the Sharpes. The couple said they were amazed and gratified by the people from across the state who have helped them, from donations of food, clothing and money to the assistance from the Red Cross, churches, organizations and businesses.

The Jordans were very touched by a letter and a cash donation from a couple in Morrill, who had lost family members to a fire in 1978. Despite their own recent illness in the family, the couple sent money saying they wished it could be more.

Jordan said he got a letter from a Winterport man, who believed he had worked with Jordan years ago. The man offered to help the Jordans rebuild their home or in any other way he could, saying he had appreciated what Jordan had done for him. “If you aren’t the same person (he knew years ago), the same offer applies,” was how the Winterport man signed the letter.

Although they know few people in the Argyle area, the Jordans said people had been wonderful. A woman who lives down the road and sells eggs leaves eggs free of charge every week.

Jordan saved his family from the fire. They escaped wearing only their night clothes.

At about 4:30 a.m. Jan. 11, Jordan, 50, went outside to start his car to go to work, but it wouldn’t start. He went back to the house. His wife, Donna, loaded up the wood stove, and they went back to bed. A few hours later, Jordan woke up smelling smoke. When he got to the living room, it was full of flames.

He woke his wife and the babies, then pushed his wife through the bedroom window. “The boy was screaming and the baby was coughing. I put my boy out and put the baby under the shirt of my long johns to keep her from the smoke and jumped out the window. The smoke was so thick you couldn’t see. Another few minutes, we wouldn’t have made it,” he said.