Almaden Country School drama teacher experiences a drama of her own
Commutes to San Jose despite fire fears back home

By Patti Wolf
Staff Writer

Almaden Country School drama teacher Sherry Curtis was minutes from her home in the Southern California Mountains last week when she saw flames and smoke.

“I thought that’s awfully close,” said Curtis, who has lived in the mountain community of Crestline for five years while commuting to Almaden during the school year. The billowing flames were about a four-minute drive from her house. “I was a bit horrified.”

Within hours, Curtis and her husband, Dave, evacuated their three-story, hilltop home, taking their cats, photo albums, her mother’s paintings, and family journals.

The flames were part of the Old Fire, one of the swarm of firestorms that devastated many Southern California communities. Two people died and more than 450 homes were destroyed in the Old Fire, which started Oct. 25. Fire officials believe an arsonist started the blaze.

The Curtis’ usual 30-minute drive down the mountain took two hours, as the couple inched their way amid a sea of other vehicles through acrid-black smoke that turned day into night.

The situation didn’t seem so grim in the valley. They left as a precaution. “We thought we’d go back tonight,” Sherry said.

But the trip down the mountain was sobering. “We both had a sick feeling,” Dave said.

Sherry Curtis was scheduled to be at Almaden Country School on Monday helping the fourth graders rehearse their big musical production, “Peter Pan.” Sherry was the drama guru at the Almaden private school for eight years before she and her husband decided to cash in on the equity in their house and move to Crestline. The mountain community of 10,000 people and no stoplights near Lake Arrowhead was the kind of picture-postcard area they sought after years of living in West San Jose.

She’s been making a weekly commute to Country School for five years. “I was already part of the family,” she said. “I couldn’t leave here.”

But on Sunday, the day after the fire began, the prospect of leaving her husband and their home in peril, though, was unthinkable.

“I couldn’t come back Monday,” Sherry said. “I was totally teary.”

The Curtises spent most of Saturday in a daze, not knowing the fate of their home or their neighbors. They numbly watched the second half of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” a play they had planned to attend in Orange County. They stayed the night at their daughter Kendra’s studio apartment in Fullerton. Kendra, a graduate student, taught drama last summer at Almaden Country School. They left the cats with Kendra and went to stay with Sherry’s sister in the Los Angeles County community of Hacienda Heights.

They watched the news, constantly.

“We started getting scared and panicked,” said Dave. “We didn’t know what we would do. We didn’t know where we would go.”

They left more than their home in Crestline. They also left Dave’s business, the trucks he uses to clean up fire fuel—pine needles and brush —around homes.

“To think we’d lose our home and business was pretty frightening,” he said.

They learned of two Web sites operated by mountain folks who didn’t leave, where neighbors could post questions and get more accurate information than what was reported in the media. One of those Web site operators, a man who ran the local Radio Shack, told folks he was feeding the animals left behind. Some residents learned the fate of their homes on the Web site.

“We’d glom on to any piece of information,” Sherry said.

On Monday, as Almaden Country School parents conducted dress rehearsals for “Peter Pan,” Sherry decided to return to Country School the next day. The first performance was Tuesday afternoon.

“I thought, what can I do here?” Sherry said. “There’s nothing like children to take your mind off something.”

The Country School family gave her a hero’s welcome. There were hugs, kisses and tears. Many were amazed she came back to San Jose. Debbie Shakespear’s first-grade class wrote letters of love and support.

“We hope the fire goes out soon and you are safe,” wrote Justin Baba.

“I like you and I love you Mrs. Curtis,” wrote Shelby Schrager-Sours.

“I hope the fire doesn’t burn down your house,” wrote Anthony Streete.

The soft-spoken drama teacher was quite moved. “I was so touched by those letters,” she said.

While she worked with the casts of “Peter Pan” to fine-tune their performances, she thought about Dave, their home and the fire.

“I could tune it out when they were on stage,” she said. “But the minute it was over, I’d be on the phone.”

Both fourth grade classes put on two performances, one during the day and one in the evening, as part of Country School’s drama curriculum. After the last performance Thursday night, Sherry was on a plane home.

“We didn’t really know until Friday that our house would be OK,” she said.

When she and Dave left their home, the temperatures hovered in the 90s and the Santa Ana winds were blowing. They locked their doors, but left the upstairs windows open, thinking they would be home later that night.

When they returned almost a week later, the temperature inside the house was 34 degrees and the power was out.

On their journey home up the mountain, they saw blackened hillsides and empty lots where houses once stood. Their neighborhood, in the valley, was untouched.

“Everything on the rim burned,” Sherry said. “If the street where you lived had ‘view’ in the name, the homes were gone.”

In the first days of the fire, when Sherry and Dave thought about their future, and where they would go if their house was gone, they decided to stay in Crestline, but opt for a
single-story home instead of their multi-level structure, “because we’re older now,” Sherry said.

They did learn some lessons from the fire. Close the windows, for one. But also, Sherry said, she would have taken more personal items—gifts the students gave her after a play, some of her mother’s china, “things that would make any new house my house.”