Dennis and Carol Bradshaw hosted countless dinners and family parties in their small red cottage and barn with a patio on the Halfway River in Sandy Hook, where children swam and fished for trout. The half-acre-property has been in Carol’s family for about a century and she inherited it from her uncle 55-years ago. The couple got married there. Paige Wagner, remembers the photo of her grandparents celebrating in their kitchen with a Carvel ice cream cake.
Before retirement, Dennis was a longtime K9 officer for the town of Monroe, handling two dogs, Liberty and Justice, and Carol drove a bus for Newtown public schools for over three decades. They continued to enjoy their home with visits from their six children and 18 grandchildren, until the flood washed it all away on Sunday, Aug. 18.
“When it rains the river gets a little higher,” Wagner said during an interview at Last Drop Coffee Shop in Monroe Saturday morning. “They’d send pictures and say, ‘look, the river’s raging today.’ This one was just different. It’s heartbreaking.”
That fateful afternoon, Wagner said her grandparents told her the torrential rains caused the river to rise and, within five minutes, water was raging on both sides of their home.
“It was really hard to get out,” Wagner said. “My Aunt Cheri and cousin Chad had to go in and rescue them — helping to pull them out of the house.”
The Bradshaws waded through the current to escape to the safety of their SUV. Their dogs, two English Springer spaniels, also had to be rescued.
After they evacuated their home, water rose and poured in through the windows of the house, and rushing water uprooted an old oak tree, which came crashing down, splitting the structure. Rushing water took out the foundations of the house and barn, while it swept away the lawn and Carol’s well-manicured garden.
The Bradshaws lost clothing, furniture, keepsakes and their home and are now living with a relative.
“The hardest part is this was my family’s legacy space,” Wagner said. “It was less about what filled it and more about the home itself. The home was so special. It’s a piece of history.”
Wagner describes her grandparents as giving people, who always made sure their guests were well-fed. “It was hard to see people who gave everything, lose everything,” she said.
Resilience
Wagner and her cousins got together for a group chat to figure out a way to help their beloved grandparents however they could.
“We knew they weren’t the type of people who were going to ask for help themselves,” she said. “They’re givers. They’ve done so much for us, we just wanted to do the same for them. Our grandparents are our heroes. When our friends come out to meet them, they’re everyone’s grandparents.”
Wagner’s father and other older relatives have told her there was always an extra person seated around the Bradshaws’ dinner table.
She and her cousins started the, “Help the Bradshaws start over” GoFundMe page with a goal of raising $100,000 for their grandparents. As of Saturday afternoon, $35,950 was raised from 468 donations.
Wagner said her family is grateful to everyone who donated and her grandparents are touched by the outpouring of generosity and support.
While the outcome is still uncertain, she said her hope is the money raised will help her grandparents rebuild their lives the way they want to.
“We were raised to always look at the better side of things,” Wagner said. “All of my family has banded together and become such a strong unit. It’s moving to see all of us be so close like that — and it’s because of everything they’ve done for us and the way they kept us together.”
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “It’s also comforting to know our family will always be there for each other like that.”
Salvaging memories
The Bradshaws have home and flood insurance, but when it comes to payouts Wagner, said both companies have been pointing fingers at each other.
She has been helping her grandparents salvage belongings from their home.
Some things, like a homemade family tree, were lost forever. Among the items recovered from the attic was a box with 20 rubber ducks.
“My grandmother gave any excuse to get the family together,” Wagner recalled. “We had duck races on the river and ice cream socials.”
Dennis Bradshaw had retired after a 20-year-career as a Monroe police officer and Wagner said her grandfather volunteered to train dogs to be police K-9s for different departments in the state of Connecticut with Bill Scribner.
“We found a lot of his certificates he gave to dogs,” she said, “so many things we wouldn’t normally find: my dad’s journal, my dad, aunts’ and uncles’ school photos. I think I found my dad’s report card.”
Wagner has fond memories of playing with her cousins at the house, including a time when they accidentally broke the emergency door on their grandmother’s school bus when it was parked in the driveway.
Though the overflowing river ultimately destroyed her grandparents’ home, some of her family’s best times were spent there. She remembers relatives swimming and fishing in the river.
“We had a sandy patch in the bank of that river that we called Pirate Island,” Wagner said. “We didn’t know anyone who came down there and didn’t love it. It’s like you fell in love with the space. The river behind it, that was the allure of the house. It was so peaceful to listen to it.”
Wagner said the GoFundMe campaign will help her grandparents rebuild so they have a home again, whether it’s on the same property or a new one — “so they have a home again.”
“GoFundMe is for whatever’s next to help them be okay,” she said. “Wherever they go, that will be Gram and Pop’s house.”
All respectful comments with the commenter’s first and last name are welcome.
So sorry for the loss of the red cottage and so much more damage to Monroe and nearby towns; however, I believe Halfway River is in Monroe and not Sandy Hook.
Perhaps their mailing address might be Sandy Hook but the cottage must be in
Monroe.
Lois M Hayden