Maine
Remote Maine toymaker seeks help to restart business after 2nd devastating fire
DREW PLANTATION, Maine — A Drew Plantation couple is struggling to return to grips with a large June 8 fireplace that destroyed their residence and toy-making enterprise.
The Smalleys’ residence and enterprise have been in-built a distant a part of the state — about 45 miles south of Houlton, on the border of Aroostook and Penobscot counties, and 45 miles north of Lincoln, placing the property smack in the course of Maine’s distant wilderness — which suited the couple simply fantastic.
However that remoteness price them dearly, and meant ready for what appeared like an eternity for volunteer firefighters to return douse the flames.
David and Susan Smalley operated Elves & Angels, the place they’ve made heirloom-quality, wood toys on their property at 53 Andrews Highway for 33 years. However within the early morning hours of June 8, David Smalley woke to the sound of the household canine barking. Sensing one thing was fallacious, he seemed out the window and noticed flames pouring out of his workshop.
This hearth marks the second time the Smalleys’ workshop and residential have burned at Drew Plantation. Now the couple hopes to resurrect their enterprise a bit farther north within the larger Houlton space. With a view to make that occur, the household desires to purchase again a number of the items that they had made and offered to allow them to be used as templates. All of their present patterns have been misplaced within the fireplace.
“The very first thing I noticed have been flames capturing most likely 30 to 40 ft into the air out of the workshop,” David Smalley mentioned.
The fireplace destroyed not solely the household enterprise, but in addition unfold to their close by residence and claimed the lifetime of one in every of their household pets.
The couple tried calling 911 on their landline telephone, since cellphone reception will be spotty.
“However the fireplace began hitting {the electrical} system, so the telephones saved slicing out,” David Smalley mentioned. “Then it acquired darkish when the lights went out. We by no means actually knew if the decision truly went by way of.”
He made his solution to the subsequent closest home roughly 1,000 ft away on the dust highway the place they lived, in search of assist from neighbors, and by the point he returned, the fireplace had unfold to their residence, he mentioned.
“It was so surreal,” he mentioned. “The wind was blowing sawdust into the sky, and the flames have been igniting it. It was like some type of struggle film.”
The fireplace’s trigger was by no means decided, and the couple have been dwelling with one in every of their grownup kids in Hodgdon.
In 2004, simply earlier than Thanksgiving, the household toy-making enterprise and a portion of their residence was destroyed the primary time. Due to that fireplace, the household discovered it virtually not possible to get insurance coverage on their rebuilt enterprise and residential.
For about 33 years, the Smalleys operated Elves & Angels from their workshop adjoining to their residence in Drew Plantation. Previous to retreating to rural Maine, the Smalleys operated their enterprise in Scarborough for about three years, earlier than rising prices compelled them out of the world.
“I don’t even keep in mind how we discovered this place,” Susan Smalley mentioned. “It was earlier than the web.”
David Smalley mentioned their mortgage was solely $300 once they purchased the property.
“That definitely helped to get our enterprise off the bottom. We acquired busy very quick,” he mentioned.
Previous to the arrival of the web, the Smalleys offered their merchandise at toy reveals and occasions as far-off as New York Metropolis. At present their items are in such excessive demand, due to on-line orders, that the enterprise changed into a year-round enterprise.
David Smalley began constructing toy properties after growing arthritis in his elbows at an early age. Confronted with having to reinvent himself, he determined he needed to remain within the home-building line, solely on a a lot smaller scale.
That’s when Elves & Angels was began. Susan Smalley nonetheless remembers the very first piece her husband made. He had crafted a kitchen range for his daughter Priscilla’s fifth birthday. They wound up naming the piece after their daughter, and many of the items within the assortment are named for one in every of their 12 kids.
From there, the creations expanded to incorporate wood castles, dollhouses and even small tables and chairs for youngsters to play with.
“We satisfaction ourselves on making generational toys that may be handed down from one technology to the subsequent,” David Smalley mentioned. “We hear from individuals on a regular basis who’ve kitchens which might be 25 to 30 years previous and are actually with grandchildren.”
A GoFundMe web page was created by one of many Smalleys’ grownup kids to assist her mother and father rebuild their enterprise.