Dowell Family Loses Everything

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Robin Martin had spent the day before trying to figure out what bills she could pay with the $175 a week she earns as an employee of the Sesser Opera House. "Now, I've got $13 and I found my daughter's ring," she said, holding the ring in her hand as she looked at the burned out wreckage of the couple's mobile home.

Their two children had been staying with family members on New Year's eve and weren't home at the time.

Husband Jason had stepped out of the shower shortly after midnight on New Year's Eve to find the living room of the couple's home on Dowell's north end on fire. The fire apparently began in the family's car, a Saturn Ion, that was parked behind the mobile home and hadn't run since October. "It had a lot of electrical problems," she said, but doesn't know that it had anything to do with the fire. It had been sitting there a long time."We have no clue" as to how the fire started, she said.

Dowell and Elkville firemen responded to the 12:37 a.m. fire and extinguished it quickly, said Robin. "They were great!" The family spent Monday picking through the rubble. The mobile home was insured, but it could be two months before there's any money.