ELON, Va. – This is the day Frank and Mary James have long awaited.
“So that no onslaught slot can undermine it and no ill wind can unsettle it,” Barry Tucker said during the dedication prayer for the Elon couple's new home.
An EF3 tornado demolished their home in April last year and they are finally moving back home, but into a new house.
Frank, 79, and Mary, 71, can now stand in a room at the very spot where they lost everything.
“I looked up and the roof was gone and seen her coming through here and the bed. She (Mary’s daughter) ended up diving in the woods in the bed. We ended up down over the hill there,” Frank James said.
It took some convincing to finally get the Jameses on board. Bradley and Lee Barth were their case managers.
“[To] help them come to a place where they would let Amherst disaster recovery rebuild their home because they had other ideas in mind,” Lee Barth, a member of the Amherst Disaster Recovery Group, said.
Amherst County’s Habitat for Humanity stepped in too, helping the couple find a place to stay while they built the house.
“We built it because we knew Mary was struggling with walking. It is ADA-compliant. If you look at the ramp, all the extras that went into the bathroom,” Bradley Barth said.
“I’m getting too old to lay in the tub. You can get in but you can’t get out,” Frank James said while looking at the new shower in their bathroom.
Frank and Mary would stop by nearly every day to check on the progress.
Friday was their first time seeing the inside completely finished.
And it left them amazed.
"Oh yeah it’s nice in here … yeah,” Frank said. “Well I think they done a good job on it. Yeah.”