As he sifted through the charred remains of his home, Charles Barone dug up a tattered print of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, shook his head, and talked about his house as if it were an old friend. “It’s the end of a beautiful relationship,” he said.
Nearly everything he and his wife, Nadine, owned, including his stained-glass art studio and six beloved cats, were destroyed by a fire in Woodstock Dec. 30.
“It’s difficult because every day I wake up and I think I have to go back and finish my work,” said Charles, whose stained-glass windows adorn churches and municipal buildings throughout his home state of New Jersey and many other places. “I lost everything that a man could acquire in a lifetime of art. It’s all been decimated.”
At the age of 75, Charles is still producing some of his best work. He was in the final stages of one of the most ambitious projects of his award-winning, 50-year career — a stained-glass mural for the main lobby of the Frank J. Guarini justice complex in Jersey City, N.J., depicting the Statue of Liberty and the immigrants of Ellis Island.
“I had been laboring on it for two-and-a-quarter years,” he said. “I went in my studio every day from the time that I started it, and asked Mary to always guide me. I prayed to Jesus on the cross to always watch over me.”
Charles suspects that faulty wiring in the studio was the culprit. He had fallen asleep on his recliner around 10 p.m. and was jolted awake by his wife screaming, “Call 911.”
“We had literally seconds to get out of there,” said Nadine, who was assisted by a neighbor. “He’s a firefighter, and he grabbed me as I was heading back in for the cats. He said, ‘You gotta get out now, Nadine, now!” And he pulled me out the front door. We made it across the street and there was an explosion. Everything went up in flames. We left with the clothes on our back. That was it.”
Five weeks later, the Barones, longtime parishioners of St. John Bosco Church in Woodstock, sat on the sofa in their rental home with their two surviving cats, wearing clothes that were donated to them by a local thrift shop. They spoke about being grateful to God for their survival, and the new beauties they were discovering in their 15-year marriage.
“When you fall into the abyss of tragedy and terror — that’s what it was — the one who was the strongest was Nadine,” said Charles, who was hospitalized for four days, suffering from smoke inhalation and shock. “She took on the yoke to carry us through. She made it easy for me to come out of the hospital, taking care of the car, the insurance, the rental house, clothes, everything. She picked up the tough end.”
“We’ve always loved our faith and that’s what’s holding us together,” said Nadine, 72. “It’s our love for each other and our faith.”
At St. John Bosco, stained-glass windows of the saint and the Divine Mercy, both made by Charles, flank either side of the sanctuary.
“Every Sunday, they’re in the same pew on the right side of the church, under the Divine Mercy window,” said friend Kathleen Mirus. “They’re just a very special couple.”
The Barones plan to rebuild their home and the stained-glass studio in the same location. Charles said his routine will also be the same, beginning each day by asking Jesus for protection.
“If you just trust in Jesus, he may not give you what you want but gives you what you need in ways that you can address it,” said Charles. “It comes in little ways and little ways add up to big ways and that’s what we’ve learned from this tragedy.”
“He saved us from that fire; we shouldn’t be alive,” said Nadine. “There’s a purpose for us. We don’t know what that is, but now the purpose is to go on and that’s what we’re going to do.”
To help
Donations to help the Barones can be made at http://bit.ly/3CGIE7S.
