Restored dress gives family a thread of hope after losing 11 relatives to Helene
By Jennifer Emert
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FAIRVIEW, North Carolina (WLOS) — Hurricane Helene’s wrath claimed 108 lives to date across western North Carolina. One single family, the Craig family, suffered tremendously, losing 11 loved ones to a landslide. Even in their deep grief, a thread of hope remains.
“You never know what’s going to bring it up. What song or smell or whatever, it just happens,” said Alicia Craig about the storm that forever changed her and her extended family’s lives.
To say Helene ripped apart the fabric of the Craig family hardly describes what they’ve endured over the last year.
“We were very close, we were very good friends, explained Alicia Craig of the relationship with her mother-in-law, Sandy Craig.
Among the 11 family members lost during Helene were her in-laws, Ronnie and Sandy Craig.
“It’s just a relationship you would want a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law to have, so I was very fortunate for that,” said Craig. “The night before the storm, she had come over and got our dog, and she was like I’ll trade you a pizza for a dog. I remember her coming out with Hank, our dog and she had put a raincoat on him because it was raining so bad and I was like I’ll bring your pizza in and she was like no, no, I’ll bring him to the car and I was like if I’d only known, I would have gone in and stayed and talked to them, you know for hours. We didn’t know any of this was going to happen,” explained Craig, as tears gently rolled down her cheeks. “I guess that’s the hardest part, knowing we’re still here, and that they’re not. And we’ll never be able to get that back, at least we have the memories.”
Memories turned into keepsakes after some of Sandy’s treasures were pulled from the mud.
“It was just a picture of my mother-in-law, and it was one of her ficus trees she had, and a little bench that I had here at the house, and just made that her little special corner,” said Craig about the memorial set up in her home to honor her mother-in-law.
A separate tribute for her father-in-law, Ronnie, has also been created in another area of their home, built by Ronnie Craig.
The dress Strangers found countless belongings from the families’ homes and laid them out gently at the Garren Creek Fire Department.
“I kept walking by this dress and Bible. I was thinking to myself, when I would go by the dress, every few weeks, that would be so great if someone could figure out whose dress that is,” said Craig.
Covered in mud, it remained unmistakably familiar.
“I sent a picture of it to her sister, and I was like, ‘Do you think this is Sandy’s dress?’ and she was like, ‘I do,’” said Craig.
Determined to salvage what the storm had nearly shredded, Alicia Craig tried dry cleaner after dry cleaner.
“I’d walk in with this plastic bag, full of mud, with her dress in it, and they were like, ‘We’re not touching that.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, it’s okay if it can’t be restored, I get it, I just want it to be dry cleaned,’ and they were like, ‘No.’” said Alicia Craig.
All seemed lost when something needled Alicia to take it somewhere she hadn’t considered. That somewhere was Best Bride.
“I never thought of them as restoring dresses; I only thought you went there to buy dresses. I didn’t think, and then something just told me to take it there,” Craig said.
“It was a Saturday morning and we were just in here going crazy and my staff came and found me back here in the bridal department and said, ‘We have a lady up front, and she has a bridal gown in a trash bag, and we don’t think she’s real happy.’ and I said, ‘Well lets go find out what’s going on,'” said Denise Knapp, co-owner of Best Bride Prom & Tux.
“When we took the dress out of the bag, the bottom of the dress was shredded, and clumps of dirt were on this gown. And I held it up and I shook it and it just came off on the floor,” said Knapp.
Best Bride works with Wedding Gown Preservation in New York and New Jersey, a business restoring gowns since 1913.
“So, the overlay over this dress is silk chiffon, and they were concerned that the chemicals in the cleaners would just continue to disintegrate it, so they really had to take their time,” said Knapp.
They worked gently, relentlessly to erase the storm’s touch, one stain at a time. Boxed up, it recently arrived back at Best Bride.
“It is perfect, in an imperfect way,” said Knapp about the dress’s return.
The return In a rare bright moment after so much loss, News 13 broke the news to Alicia.
“They have it at the store. Do you want to go see it?” News 13 asked.
“I do, yes, I do. I want to go see it and bring it home,” said Craig.
Just a thread in the greater effort.
“Hey, hey, I think Sandy would be proud,” said Knapp as she opened the box to reveal the dress.
“Oh, it’s perfect,” said Craig as she stared through the plastic at the cleaned, preserved dress.
“Isn’t that great?” asked Knapp.
“It does, it looks so good,” said Craig, gently touching the plastic protecting the cleaned dress.
It’s a thread of hope, stitching healing into the fabric of a grieving family.
“I just hope that this helps your family find some closure,” said Knapp, still looking at the dress.
“Yeah, no, it definitely will,” replied Craig, still looking over the cleaned garment.
“And she talks to me all the time, and so I’m glad to do this. It’s a pleasure,” said Knapp.
“She talks to me too,” replied Craig, though some light tears, “So it’s perfect, it looks so good, thank you. I can just see her, through it, yeah, so, it’s good.”
Honoring those lost to Helene Among the Craig family members killed when the land around their homes gave way on September 27, 2024, were Ronnie and Sandy Craig, Jimmy and Lois Souther, Freddie and Terri Pack, Dan and Evelyn Wright, and Angie Craig, along with Tony Garrison and Brandon Ruppe.
Two other residents unrelated to the family also died on September 27, 2024, as a result of the landslide. Neighbors Chase Garrell and Marsha Ball were also killed.
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