Char Adlesperger’s life definitely took a dramatic turn last Wednesday, February 22.
“I was in Sterling for lunch. My grandma called and said my house was on fire. At first I asked her if she was joking,” she said earlier this week.
Unfortunately, her grandma, Linda Dinsmore, was not.
“I turned around and came right back,” Char said. “I got there just as the firemen were getting it out.”
She was living in a trailer home on a rural lot where her grandparents, Lyle “Stoney” and Linda Dinsmore live. Char, 28, had been there since August.
“Everything’s gone,” she said
Char is an AKC breeder of dogs. It was an extremely cold day, with a high of 25 degrees, and snow flurries, so all seven of her dogs were inside the single-wide trailer home, located at the intersection of Washington County roads YY and 39 right by the Hyde elevator. The dogs ranged from 11 months to six years old. All perished.
“That was the worst part of it because they were my kids,” Char said. “It’s more about my girls being gone than anything else.”
The fire’s cause has not been determined. Char said the biggest damage was in the kitchen, and it spread out from there. She said the furnace was not working that cold morning, and had called her grandma about it before heading out to Sterling.
“I should have just stayed home,” she said.
The Yuma Volunteer Fire Department’s Jonathan Ferrari said about half of the dwelling was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived, and much of the roof had already collapsed, so the firefighters went into defense attack
Char said everything was lost in the fire. She said she has been running an online retail business for four years, and had invested an significant amount of money into equipment for it. All of that was lost in the fire also. She said she will restart that business, but it will be slow going. She also was set to start a new job in Sterling this week, but documents her new employer needs, such as Social Security card, were lost in the fire, and it will take two to six weeks to get a new one.
Her brother Elijah has a GoFundMe page on the internet to raise funds to help Char restart. It can be found by going to gofundme.com and type in “Helping Char.” A link to it also can be found at the Pioneer’s Facebook page. She said people also have been dropping off checks and other donations, and people also have been coming into Dollar General in Yuma, where she and her grandma work part-time, with donations.
While she is not comfortable with asking for help, “at this point anything helps.”
Char currently is living with her grandparents in their nearby home, while trying to get her feet underneath her again.
“I think I’ve pretty much cried out all I can cry,” she said. “Now all I can do is move forward from here…fingers crossed.”
