A world of memories is ashes

Times have been rough for Christine Swift, who was already planning to move on. Now this.

By HELEN ANNE TRAVIS, Times Staff Writer
Published October 3, 2007

Christine Swift reaches down to check on an item removed from her home of 20 years following a morning fire. "I spent a life time collecting antiques," she said from the front seat of her car sobbing and looking at her burned out home.
	[Mike Pease | Times]

ZEPHYRHILLS - Christine Swift, 48, sat barefoot in her front yard, sobbing and tugging at the grass. She looked at the burned shell of the home where she had lived for 19 years.

Her second wedding took place in the back yard. She raised her children here. Her grandmother, long gone now, celebrated her 80th birthday with a DJ and dancing on the grass.

A neighbor called Pasco Fire Rescue around 9 a.m. Tuesday and reported flames shooting out of Swift's home on Lisa Circle. Firefighters had the blaze, which is still under investigation, contained in 30 minutes.

No one got hurt - but Swift lost everything in the fire.

"I hate to say it, but this house has been dead for a while," Swift said Tuesday.

She hadn't lived at home for months. Too many memories, she said. She stayed with friends in Zephyrhills and came to the home for a change of clothes.

Her final divorce hearing was Tuesday morning.

When she turned the corner onto her street she saw fire trucks in her yard. Her home was a smoking shell. She never made it to the hearing.

The house belonged to Swift and husband, James. She said she was going to get the home in the divorce. James Swift didn't want to talk to a reporter, and directed the Times to his lawyer, who could not be reached Tuesday.

After the divorce was finalized, Swift said she planned to move to Murphy, N.C., to be with her daughter, Heather, 30, and her two grandchildren.

Swift also has a son in Zephyrhills, Ernest Babcock, 28.

"I had to get out of here," she said Tuesday.

Overall, it has been a rough year for Swift. She and her ex-husband agreed their divorce has not been easy. Swift served six days in jail in November on charges that she was in contempt of court during a hearing.

Her two dogs, Buster and Rascal, were impounded in January after police reports say they charged a deputy. Swift said they were euthanized in April.

Her car was stolen in July. She had two heart attacks this year, the most recent in September, she said. And last weekend marked the one-year anniversary of her mother's death.

"This shouldn't have even surprised me," she said, smoking a cigarette and looking at the burned remains of her home.

Piled in the yard were stacks of charred antique furniture. Swift's aunt invited her on an antiquing expedition through the thrift stores of Rockland County, New York, when Swift was 12. She's been a collector ever since.

"I spent my lifetime collecting antiques, and there they are."

A burned claw-foot table leg rested next to a pile of broken picture frames. Ashes covered an old New York parking meter. Drizzle fell on the burned chairs and antique doilies in the yard. Swift estimated that she had lost hundreds of pieces worth thousands of dollars in the fire.

But Swift didn't spend hours on the home's back porch years ago restoring the furniture for a profit.

"It's my pleasure, my hobby," she said.

For a wedding gift, her daughter received a restored dining room table and two mismatched antique chairs. With the arrival of each grandchild, Swift refinished another chair.

"They have heart, they have a history," she said of the items in her mostly-destroyed collection.

But some items made it through the blaze. In one room, Swift found an untouched chamber pot from the 1800s. In the driveway, unharmed by the smoke, sat a copper fire extinguisher from Buffalo, N.Y.

Swift had hoped to sell the home and build a new one in North Carolina. She still plans on leaving Zephyrhills, a city that she says has brought her nothing but bad luck recently.

"I have to get out of here while I'm still alive," she said.

Helen Anne Travis can be reached at 352 521-6518 or htravis@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 2, 2007, 21:23:04]