Volunteers Help Rescue Historic Pass Christian Home

Mary Helen Schaeffer with volunteer.
Photo: Randolph Langenbach

By Rosa Lowinger

In February 2006, Mary Helen Schaeffer sat in a FEMA trailer on her lawn in Pass Christian, Mississippi, looking at the remnants of the gracious beachfront house she and her husband Philip had once called home. "This is worst and best of times," she said with a mix of cheerfulness and gravity. "We have no walls. No floors. No plumbing or electricity. We were heavily insured for the storm but [the insurance company] says everything came off because the foundation shifted and we had no flood insurance. I thought FEMA would give me money for structural repairs but we've had no financial assistance. Luckily, we live in a country where people volunteer to work and help you."

Mrs. Schaeffer expressed these sentiments as teams of volunteers buzzed past her front yard, heading into Pass Christian, a town that had been practically destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Her house, which is located on the aptly named Scenic Drive along the coast, had its downstairs destroyed when concrete rubble from the beachfront boardwalk tore up the front porch's foundation in the storm surge, and, in turn, pushed the porch through the living room and dining room. The house's expansive porte cochere and second floor details were also lost. At the time, the Schaeffers were in Taos on vacation. But when they came back, she immediately snapped into action.

Mary Helen Schaeffer with J. Baughn.
Photo: Randolph Langenbach

"The first thing I did was get someone to tarp my roof correctly," she explained. "It was a week after the storm. I'd been in the hardware store, and met these contractors from a church in Colorado Springs. An hour later, 18 of them showed up, and even though my roof is high and steep, they put up the tarp in minutes. They also built a frame where walls were gone and put up plastic and a tarp to protect the interior."

While the contractors were working, Mrs. Schaeffer heard them talking. Deeply religious, the volunteers were praying among themselves that god would protect her house. A week later, more volunteers arrived, this time from Nebraska. "There were about twelve of them," she explained. "One guy had rented a bobcat and a trailer and they helped me remove debris every day for two weeks. Another one, from Kentucky, made me a new front door." Mrs. Schaeffer attributes the help she got to the fact that she was on site, working to protect her house. "My neighbors who stayed away got no help. Now their houses continue to deteriorate and when the next hurricane season comes, who knows what will happen."

Mary Helen Schaeffer and volunteer team.
Photo: Randolph Langenbach

Yet, though the initial clean-up and protection of her house had been accomplished, Mrs. Schaeffer confessed that she was not sanguine about ultimately being able to save it. "We bought our house in '94, but we worked hard, and saved our money to afford it. Now it was going to cost about $400,000 to restore it and we didn't have that kind of money." In December, however, Mrs. Schaeffer sought the advice of the Mississippi Heritage Trust and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "They came down and spent a long time here telling me how to fix the foundation. They typed up a detailed report many pages long. Now I had the information I needed, but still no funding." As the Schaeffers weighed their options, they continued to seek volunteer help. Then in February, nearly six months after the storm, everything came together. A volunteer coordinator told her that a group of thirty contractors would be coming down from California, and that they would be willing to build her walls and a new floor if she could get the materials together. "I called Lolly [Barnes of the National Trust for Historic Preservation], and Jennifer [Baughn of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History] and said I have an offer of help but no supplies." A team of volunteer architects sponsored by the Trust and Mississippi Heritage spent two days at the Schaeffer house, preparing a detailed list of all the materials she needed to purchase for the contractors. In April, when the contractors arrived, Mrs. Schaeffer was ready for them. They framed her front wall and bay windows, enclosed the walls, and installed the entire downstairs floor. Once this was finished, the Schaeffers had their foundation fixed and walls plastered at their own expense.

"It's been hard to evict the raccoons, but we're living here again, sleeping in our beds," said Mrs. Schaeffer recently from the living room of her house. "It's not finished, but I've got a house back and when I put the lights on it looks like it always did. It had all fit together. If all those things hadn't happened I couldn't have restored the house."