Community helps family cope with losing it all

By ALEX STRICKLAND - Bigfork Eagle

Six-year-old twins Acacia and Destiny Otten were dressed up to play princess on New Year's Eve when all of a sudden their mom, Kris, hurried them out to the car. Their castle was burning down.

Kris Otten and her husband Tom had smelled smoke in their home at 240 Alpine Dr. while they were making homemade pizzas for dinner. Hours later their home was gone, destroyed by the fire.

"We saw the smoke and were out of the house before the fire alarms even went off," Kris said. "Had we been sleeping it could have been different."

The only things they were able to grab were Kris' purse and an overnight bag the twins had brought to Missoula the week before that was sitting by the door. Everything else, photos, kitchenware, Christmas presents, was lost in the blaze.

The Ottens went to Kris' parent's house in Whitefish in the aftermath to figure out what to do next, but over the next week the community around Swan River School — where the twins are in kindergarten — helped figure it out for them.

The girls' teacher Susan Stephens knew of a rental house across from the school that had been unexpectedly vacated and gathered a group of parents and teachers to help clean it so that the Ottens could move in. Beds were donated from local stores and neighbors along with plates, linens and clothes.

Seventy-two hours after the Ottens had lost it all, they were home again.

Their house was insured, "the big thing," Kris said. But try to explain to a pair of six-year-olds that Christmas presents and favorite toys and the only rooms they'd known are gone for good.

"One of them was sick with the flu and she said, 'I want to go back to my old room,'" Kris said. "How do you explain to a child that that room is gone?"

When Swan River School Principal Peter Loyda heard about the Ottens situation after New Years it was from Stephens and the two of them, along with parent-teacher organizer Shelley Edgerton, put together a letter to send home with Stephens' class. Eventually, they decided to give the letter to every student so that parents in the community could be made aware of the Otten's loss.

"The school and the community has come together as a force," Loyda said.

So far clothing, furniture, a washer and dryer and countless other items and gift cards have come in to help the Otten family return to some sort of a normal life.

"The response has been amazing," he said. "The pooling together of people in this community has been a miracle to watch."

Stephens said that for her students it's been an opportunity for everyone to appreciate their own good fortune and to rally around their classmates and friends.

"Today it was pretty cute to watch all the kids welcome the girls back," she said of the twins' first day back at school on Monday.

"We live in such an awesome community," she said. "It's been overwhelming."

As for the Otten's home on Alpine Drive, Kris said it's all in the hands of their insurance people now to determine what the next step of the process is. Officials from the Bigfork Fire Department were optimistic that a newer portion of the house might be salvageable, but Kris said only time, and plenty of paperwork, will tell.

There is no time frame for the process, she said, but expects that they will rebuild at the same location.

Until that time, however, Kris said the rental house will be their home base as they try to piece back together their lives. With paper mazes and assessments of everything that was lost, it won't be easy. But as all involved pointed out, everyone is safe and the community has opened its heart.

"Truth be told, people have been amazing," Kris said. "We'll be excited to get back to whatever it is we call normal."

People wanting to help the Ottens can bring donations to the Swan River School. The items most needed now are toys and books for the twins. Kris said they love anything from the television programs Dora the Explorer and Dragon Tales and that they adore anything to do with princesses.