The biggest adjustment Clara Moore had to make was not having a pair of shoes.
A fire destroyed her home and nearly everything she owned when she left to run a brief errand on Saturday.
“I just had on a pair of flip-flops when I left the house,” said Clara. “I didn’t know how much it means to have a pair of shoes. I was left with just the clothes on my back. That was it. I’m still overwhelmed by it all. That was my home for 30 years. It’s where my kids grew up and now it’s gone. It wasn’t much, but it was mine. I just want a place I can go home again.”
An account has been set up at Homeland Community Bank for Clara and her husband, Houston “Blue” Moore, after their home on Copenhaver Road in the Campaign community was deemed a complete loss.
Clara said she has no idea how the fire started.
“I had just left for a few minutes to run over to my mother-in-law’s house,” said Clara. “I hadn’t even been gone 20 minutes. When I came back and unlocked the door, smoke rolled into my face. I didn’t even have my cellphone to call for help. I’d left it inside because I was gone for such a short time.”
She had to return to her mother-in-law’s to call 911. By the time firefighters arrived, there was nothing they could do to save the structure. Clara says they didn’t have home insurance.
“It’s nothing but ashes. That’s all we have left,” said Clara. “The worst thing is I lost all my pictures, pictures of the kids and of graduation and pictures of my ball teams.”
Clara is a longtime coach who has coached school basketball at Morrison and Eastside. She coached Jaycee basketball for 14 years and says she may be best remembered in Midway as the woman who pitched barefoot in the coach-pitch league.
“The kids liked it and I liked it so I just kept pitching barefoot,” said Clara.
She works at Morrison School and principal Kim Cantrell is the one who set up the benefit account at Homeland Community Bank. Clara also wants to thank Kevin Magness who used his bulldozer at no charge to clear away their old home.
Clara said their plans are to buy another trailer and place it in that same spot. The Moores have been staying in a one-room building on the property of Houston’s mother.
