Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 24, 1994 TAG: 9403240186
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
Moryn fought back, but new questions arose. How could the feisty widow possibly return to the crumbling two-story West Side home she had lived in since the 1950s?
Enter a workaholic architect and 18 ax-wielding firefighter trainees.
The firefighters-in-training, who attend a fire service school in suburban Elburn, descended on Moryn's house Friday and Saturday to practice tearing down walls.
And the architect who has spearheaded the volunteer drive to restore Moryn's home was watching, burning with excitement.
"If I had $100,000 in my hand, I could restore this house in three months," said Richard Wallace, the Chicago architect who began the restoration effort after offering to fix the broken pipes that caused Moryn's accident.
When Wallace first visited her house in January, he realized it would take more than just one good deed to restore the dilapidated home. The wiring was shot. The roof was rotting.
"The frost was so thick that the walls were weeping," he said.
Wallace estimated that even with 70 hours a week of his time, and the help of two dozen on-site volunteers and unions and merchants, it will take six months to complete the project. First, he needs to collect $60,000 and more volunteers.
The volunteers working at the house Saturday included electrical workers, graphic designers and people like John Wickham, a firefighter trainee.
"They needed some help with tearing down the walls and ceilings," Wickham said. "I said, `Gosh, I know 18 students who would be more than happy to come in and tear this place down.'"
Which the future firefighters did with great relish, wielding spiked poles and axes in Moryn's living room as if they were trying to save a trapped family.
Two months ago, Moryn was trapped there, kneeling in a 3-inch-thick sheet of ice. The Chicago police officers who found her assumed she was dead, until she started muttering, "Oh God, oh God" in Polish.
She is living with a neighbor while the project continues.
by CNB