The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Family trying to rebuild after weekend blaze
Mother of 3 kids, 1 autistic, looks to happy future after years of turmoil
MIDDLETOWN — Saturday morning began like any other for Jane Flanders and her three children, rushing to get on the road early.
She had a 10 a.m. dentist appointment and had to get her son Caleb Majewski, 17, to Plainville for his Unified Sports hockey game. Flanders was meeting her mother in a health center parking lot so she could help out with the kids.
“We live a normal chaotic life,” Flanders said. “That’s my life with these three kids. It’s like a normal morning for any mom. ‘C’mon, we’ve got to get going. We’re going to be late. Caleb’s got to be there. I’ll take you to Dunkin’.’
Sam couldn’t find shoes. Caleb was anxious for his big day. She got a call later that morning from a friend who had stopped by her house on Bartholomew Road to pick some horseradish.
“Your house is on fire,” she heard, and Flanders’ world turned upside down.
South Fire District Chief Michael Howley said the fire that damaged their home that morning was sparked by a heating lamp hooked up to a pet cage.
“Something could have been thrown, things could have gotten knocked down in the bedroom,” said Flanders, who for years worked for the state in social services. There was an unused tank in the bedroom for the children’s bearded dragon they no longer had.
The 911 call came in at about 8:50 a.m. When firefighters arrived, the circa 1964 structure was engulfed in flames. Nearly everything was lost. Caleb “has a heart of gold, and the
eyes of a child,” Flanders’ sister Jodi Flanders Fore wrote on a Facebook page she set up to help. He is autistic and has child-onset schizophrenia, his mother said, and suffers from delusions that he sometimes escapes by leaving in the middle of the night. His IQ is 70.
Caleb loves the Huskies and the Wolfpack and Marvel superheroes, Flanders Fore said.
Hannah, his sister, is a painter. She loves reading books.
Sam, his brother, is named after the Martha’s Vineyard lighthouse keeper Sam Flanders. “He loves the ocean, trains, and playing World of Warcraft with his aunt,” Flanders Fore wrote.
Flanders eventually lost her job at the state because caring for Caleb was allconsuming and her FMLA had run out.
Sam and Hannah have post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, Flanders said.
“That’s the social worker’s way of saying life gave us pain, and our minds coped in ways that don’t work for today,” Flanders wrote.
Her ex-husband, the children’s father, is recovering from a heart attack.
“The last three or four months, it’s been, we’re doing well. We’re moving and we’re going to be OK,” Flanders said.
Over many years of trying to obtain vital interventions and other services for Caleb, Flanders has gotten services from Community Health Resources behavioral health care, Intensive In-Home Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services and The Umbrella Center for Domestic Violence.
But she lost a lot of services due to cuts to the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. “We’ve been bombarded with hell.”
Caleb can’t gain entrance to group homes, and there are no services he can take advantage of because he is
“I’m going to believe that this is the end of the trials that we went through. I have to! I ache to be a normal, peaceful family once again.”
Jane Flanders on her family’s Gofundme page
intellectually disabled. “We’ve been in hell for three or four years,” she said.
The last thing she wants to do is ask the community for more help, Flanders said.
“We are the type to give back more than we receive. That’s how we are,” she said.
She and the kids have been visiting her family more and more on Martha’s Vineyard and planned to relocate there in the fall after selling their home. Flanders loves the ocean.
She wants people to know that her family is not well off even though they live on the Massachusetts island that actress Reese Witherspoon, former President Bill Clinton, David Letterman and other celebrities call home in the summer.
“The people that have been there for generations, 17 generations (of family), they were the first white people settling there. They have land, but it’s a different culture than the Obamas. Some of them are so poor if they don’t hunt and fish, they don’t eat,” Flanders said.
“It’s more nature. It’s more soul,” she said.
In Massachusetts, Caleb can access housing, for which he’s on a waiting list, as well as job training, life skills and other supports, his mother said.
“I have 50 million cousins. Half that island is related to me. Everybody loves Caleb and they treat him like he has a Ph.D. They don’t treat people differently on the island. They’re more inclusive.”
She has use of the family home, but will have to leave during the summer and stay on her oldest son’s property in a tent with the kids, something she really won’t mind. Flanders hopes to be placed in a furnished apartment soon through My Sister’s House, where they can stay for up to six months.
Meanwhile, the family has hope for a normal future.
“I’m going to believe that this is the end of the trials that we went through. I have to! I ache to be a normal, peaceful family once again,” Flanders wrote on the Gofundme.
The community is already rallying to help.
Mayor Dan Drew’s office is taking donations of clothing (boy size 4X, 16-18, size 7 shoes, boys 10.5 to 11 shoes, women’s size 14 and 16 pants, XL and large shirts, women’s size 8 shoes, size 12 shirts and socks).
Caleb could use things such as blankets and tagless shirts — which are sold at Walmart — made for people with sensory autism. “He’s dealing with the loss of his basketballs and his bike,” Flanders said.
Hannah could use art supplies: Her painting and pottery work help her deal with the depression. “That’s her coping mechanism,” Flanders said.
And everyone is a bookworm.
Flanders doesn’t want much. The self-admitted Dunkin’ Donuts addict was making coffee at home. She would welcome some K-cup pods and secondhand Keurig or other instant coffee maker someone might have hanging around.
Gift cards can be dropped off in the mayor’s office or mail them to City Hall in care of Kleckowski, 245 deKoven Drive, Middletown, 06457.
Cards to grocery stores, gas stations, Big Lots, Marshalls and other businesses are welcome.
Family have also set up a Facebook page, Support The Majewskis, and Gofundme at Helping the Majewskis Flanders.