ROANOKE, Va. – While workers move the WSLS 10 Home for Good Project toward completion sometime in the future, Stephanie Fralin is looking to the past.
“I remember mostly spending summers here with my grandparents, mostly my grandmother ... We’ve spent our Thanksgivings here. Our Christmases here,” Fralin said.
Fralin’s grandparents, James and Blanche Callahan, raised their family here, including her mother Betty and uncle Ronald.
Fralin has old black and white photos showing the generations enjoying their time in the home.
But that house burned to the ground several years ago.
Though the family had long moved out, the memories went up in flames.
Habitat bought the property. And in June (2025) we raised the wall for what will be a new home for the Toure family.
“And so I was very excited to learn that there was going to be a new family that would make memories here,” Fralin said.
Stephanie and her mother came out to one of the first work days, to see the new house take shape.
“And we spent most of the rainy, muddy morning doing a little site clean up. and then after lunch, we actually helped to put some of the insulation down around the foundation,” she said.
She is hoping to come out with people from her job for one more dose of volunteering.
In habitat homes, it’s a tradition that some of the volunteers and sponsors sign the studs before they are covered with drywall, to leave a little of themselves deep within the home.
Stephanie wanted to do the same.
“It’s going to be very emotional. It’s, you know, a little bittersweet for me that you know, that you know my family is not living here, but the fact that there’s going to be a new family making new memories here on our family’s property is going to be very sweet, very exciting.
She drew a simple heart with the word Callahan in the middle. It will be hidden with the other names. But she will know that her grandparents’ legacy, like her memories of this house, will still be there, for generations to come.