Remnants of several lifetimes of memories went up in smoke last week when a house at 3929 Boynton Drive was deliberately burned to the ground.
Sisters Tonia Jackson, left, and Tisa Sims visit their childhood home in Boynton just prior to the county burning it for a training exercise.But family members salvaged a few bricks as mementos from decades past, as well as a slab of concrete bearing the hand prints and names of two of the three children who called it home.
The house where Walter and Madge Campbell raised Tonia, Todd and Tisa; where Walt ran a shade tree lawnmower repair shop; where Madge operated a beauty parlor; where they trained racking horses, is today a memory.
The abandoned brick-clad house, purchased by the county and used for firefighter training, was destroyed late in the afternoon of April 30, set ablaze on the last day before the seasonal burn ban went into effect.
"Hands-on training is so important to build knowledge, skills and confidence," said Chief Chuck Nichols, head of the Catoosa County Fire Department. "We've been about to rotate a lot of firefighters through this building."
Fire training officer Trent Hicks said training with a real structure, rather than a dedicated fire training structure, is invaluable.
"We ran numerous drills and scenarios: rapid intervention [firefighter rescue techniques], ventilation drills and wall breeching," Hicks said. "It also helps understand how older buildings are constructed."
After training inside the house for about 10 weeks, firefighters stripped away roofing shingles and potentially hazardous materials from the building, turned off the utilities in preparation for one final exercise, the controlled burn.
The property located across the road from Boynton Elementary School will be cleared and eventually become part of the Boynton Recreation Youth Association complex.
But memories of the house and home remain strong for the Campbell's now grown children: Tonia, born in 1969; Todd, born in 1973; and Tisa, born in 1980.
"I'll always remember it as Mom's and Dad's house," Tonia Jackson said when she and her sister visited "home" one last time before its burning.
Jackson said her parents bought the house, which was located in East Ridge, for $750 in 1977 and had it moved across the state line on U.S. Highway 41 to the Boynton Community.
Her father, who was employed as a heavy equipment operator by the county, added on to the house "about five times" and eventually covered its clapboard siding with brick.
"In 1979, Dad built a front porch," Jackson recalled. "North Georgia Ready Mix poured the porch floor and he and Mom did the finishing with a broom. My brother and I put our handprints on it and signed the concrete."
Before igniting the house, firefighters used a rescue saw to slice out that memory in stone that still shows two small hands and is dated Sept. 4, 1979.
Throughout their childhood the Campbell children played ball at Boynton - "Dad was a coach" - raised horses and entered racking horse competitions throughout the area.
"We all played ball through the week, went to horse shows on weekends," Jackson said. "Every year we went to the Walking Horse Show in Shelbyville, Tenn., for vacation."
Today, her brother Todd is a farrier working in Shelbyville, but the only signs last week of the family's involvement with horses was a trophy awarded to him by the Catoosa County Saddle Club that lay hidden in the tall grass, and a dilapidated barn ready to be razed.
Jackson said neighbors and former neighbors had called to express surprise about the house being taken down. But her father had died in 2005, her mother in 2008 and the house had flooded - water marks were visible about a foot above the baseboards - about two years ago. Mold, buckled floors and mildewed carpets made the home unfit for habitation and it was sold to the county.
"It is bittersweet," she said of the homestead being destroyed. "But to see it fall into disrepair and collapse would be even sadder. Mom and Dad would want it to be used for the betterment of this community."
While resigned to the fact, none of the siblings were among the crowd that gathered to watch a piece of the community's history be turned to ash.