Fire takes all but desire to forge on

“Everything’s Gone!” a flier posted inside the Bait Farm Saloon in Silver Springs reads.

Last weekend, as Leah Seal, 8, and her mother, Donna Lynn Thompson, 43, were in Reno fulfilling Leah’s duties as Northern Nevada’s Goodwill Ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Labor Day Telethon, their Silver Springs home burned to its concrete foundation.

The flier does not exaggerate. Everything is gone.

Photographs, furniture, clothes, appliances. Leah misses her Hannah Montana bedspread. Brother Paul pines for the new dirt bike he received June 25th for his 11th birthday.

It’s all melted into a blackened heap, save for three coffee mugs Thompson salvaged Wednesday from their East Ninth Street lot, she said.

Central Lyon County Fire Captain Chuck Ritter said an electrical short in the living room is believed to have destroyed the double-wide mobile home that Thompson, 43, is still paying a mortgage on.

As the fire investigator, Ritter saw first-hand the destruction. On Wednesday morning, he authorized a donation of $1,000 to Thompson from the Central Lyon County Firefighters Burn Fund.

The family’s loss is reverberating through the tight-knit desert community of Silver Springs.

YOU CAN HELPDonations of clothing and furniture can be made to the Bait Farm Saloon at 1080 Highway 50 East in Silver Springs or items can be dropped off with Angie Smith who lives in Indian Hills by calling Angie at 781-9201. New or gently used clothing in the following sizes is sought: Leah: Girls size 7 pants and shirts. Her shoes need to be specially fitted to her leg braces. Donna Lynn: Woman’s size 14 pants and extra-large shirts. Size 5 women’s shoe Paul: Size medium men’s shirts and size 16-18 husky boy’s pants. Donations of money or gift cards can be sent to the Bait Farm Saloon “For Leah” P.O. Box 1211, Silver Springs, NV 89429. Monetary donations can be made at any Bank of America Branch to the Donna Lynn Thompson/Leah Seal fund. IF YOU GO: What: Benefit for the Seal-Thompson Family. Where: Bait Farm Saloon, 1080 Highway 50 East, Silver Springs When: 1 p.m. Oct. 4 To donate items for the raffle, please call Gayla Pesley at 577-2596, 577-49561 or Mikki at 530-6966

Gayla Pesley, owner of the Bait Farm Saloon and a woman whom Thompson referred to as a mother-figure, sprang into action.

“When I heard what happened I just cried,” said Pesley, 70. “I love Donny and those kids so much. They are absolutely wonderful people, and she’s had so many problems in her life. With little Leah and her little legs, what more could they take?”

Pesley hung fliers reporting the devastation and announcing a fundraiser at her bar to be held Oct. 4. She is soliciting donations for a raffle to be held at the event.

Already, said employee Angie Smith, Thompson’s neighbors are dropping off items — a mattress, box spring, clothes and dishes.

Thompson said the family is staying with friends in Fernley until she can find a rental home in Silver Springs.

Because of the commute, Leah, who wears leg braces and just recently began relying more on a wheelchair, had to enroll in a Fernley school, two weeks after starting fourth grade in Silver Springs.

For the single mother whose every energy goes toward her children, the fire is nothing more than the seemingly typical bumps she’s suffered her entire adult life — from the loss of both parents and her husband in the last eight years — to Leah’s diagnosis of the muscle assaulting Chacot Marie Tooth Disease at age 5.

A good sense of humor is what keeps her plugging along, Thompson said.

“I kind of live by the theory that God never gives you more than you can carry.

Although sometimes — I got to be honest — I wish he’d get his scale fixed.”

• Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.