During winter break, senior Sam Smyth and his family traveled to Pearlington, Miss., to do volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity and stumbled upon a fairy-tale story in the making

By Sam Smyth
Gargoyle senior editor
Published Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2006, Gargoyle, news

It took one of the United States' greatest natural disasters to convince Suzy and Josh Ward, both age 75, to finally tie the knot on Dec. 21 after 30 years of living together.

Their home in rural Pearlington, Miss., was knocked off its foundation and flooded during Hurricane Katrina. They held on to a rafter beam to keep from getting swept away. After finally being rescued, they were taken to different hospitals.

During the troubled and confused aftermath, many victims worried whether they were ever going to see their loved ones again, and the story of this couple is no different. Josh made the vow that if they ever got back together, they would marry. They were eventually reunited and found shelter at a relative's home near Pearlington, since their own house had been destroyed.

My family made the trip down to Mississippi for a few days this winter break to work with Habitat for Humanity of Walton County to build new homes for the victims, although we were unaware of the amazing story we would encounter.

Putting on the finishing touches
Habitat, working with the Red Cross and New Hope Construction, a professional company working at cost, had already built most of a new house a few meters away from Suzy and Josh's ruined old home when we arrived.

Of course, it was surrounded by junk, fallen trees, and other wrecks of houses. Crypts had also been raised from their depths in a nearby graveyard by the storm — although I was pretty sure a neighborhood junkyard behind the home had been there before Katrina.

My family and I worked mostly on painting and cleaning up the surrounding area with other volunteers and New Hope Construction for the next few days. Local landscapers brought in plants and pine needles to cover the ground. A nearby furniture store had donated some basics, and one of the store's interior decorators came to help put on the finishing touches.

A small porch had been built at the front of the home, and its central support was the beam that the couple credits their lives to — which they left unpainted. The Wards also lost a pet potbelly pig to the storm, and a squealing replacement was brought in.

The day the wedding was to take place, there was a great bustle in the morning to get everything clean and finished, and one volunteer had brought warm Café Du Monde beignets from New Orleans, about 40 minutes away, for us all. Christmas décor was put up, wrapping around and hanging from the porch. We had carved a small niche of beauty amongst a landscape that resembled a ravaged battlefield.

Finally pronounced man and wife
Around 2 p.m., most of the guests had gathered — volunteers, relatives and friends, some local policemen, the minister, a couple of reporters. (The New York Times was going to run a story about the wedding but found Suzy to be too slow an interviewee for its time.) The bride, however, was nowhere to be found.

After a few tense minutes, she was located and arrived an hour later, dressed in her wedding gown. Although relatively chilly for Mississippi, the sky had cleared from a dreary morning and sun shined down.

Suzy made her way slowly across the freshly landscaped lawn, escorted by police (her nephews), cameras flashing left and right, and music played from an electric keyboard set on “organ.” At seeing all of the guests, the house, and the groom, she paused, looked up into the sky and shouted, “Oh, Lordy, Lordy!”

Suzy and Josh were married just under the unpainted beam. It is puzzling to think how such wonderful events occur out of horrible disasters, people coming together and donating time and resources, and a couple given a fresh start to live out the rest of their lives in a new home.