The Year is 1908, Chelsea Massachusetts, Palm Sunday, April 12, the fire bells rang…a split second in time was all it took for my great grandparents, August and Christina Reekast and their eight children…August Jr, Nettie, Annie, John, Lillian, Lena, Ida and Teddy to lose everything.

A Massive fire ripped through the City of Chelsea, Massachusetts, the flames, so intense, the glow was seen one hundred twenty miles away off the coast line of Maine. This monster was reported to have taken the lives of eighty-seven and left approximately eighteen thousand homeless. From that moment on, life as the Reekast family~and all the citizen’s of Chelsea, would never be the same.