WE FOUND LOVE AFTER TRAGEDY
TWO PEOPLE TURNED TO EACH OTHER FOR COMFORT – BUT LOVE BLOSSOMED
When Erin Stoffel sent a Facebook message of support to widower Stephen Ullmer, she truly knew what it meant to lose a loved one.
Erin’s husband Jon and their daughter Olivia were both shot dead in a random incident two years earlier and her heart went out to Stephen, a newly single dad of four young boys.
Out of all the letters of support Stephen received, it was Erin’s that stood out because he remembered the senseless crime that shocked the town where they both lived.
And in an amazing twist of fate, the broken hearts that brought them together have now been mended.
“I had to reach out to him because more than most people, I knew the hurt he was going through,” Erin, 36, exclusively tells New Idea.
“I wanted to tell him that yes, he would get through his loss because I did when it happened to me. I was sure I could help him.”
Erin married her teenage sweetheart Jon when she was just 19 years old.
They dreamed of having a family and were overjoyed when they had three children: Olivia, Ezra and Selah.
But on May 3, 2015, everything changed forever.
On Sunday evening, the family were taking a walk across a bridge in their home town.
“We noticed a man hunched over in the pavilion area and a man standing over him,” recalls Erin.
“Ezra ran on ahead and as we neared the two men, I felt weird, almost fearful, so I took Selah’s hand and we walked past.”
Jon, then 33, and Olivia, 11, stopped and asked if they could help.
The next thing Erin knew, the man turned and shot Jon through the chest, shot Olivia and then shot Erin three times.
Erin had to make the most difficult split-second decision of her life – stay with Jon and Olivia and risk further harm or try to get her other two children to safety.
“It’s a decision that still haunts me, even though I know I did the right thing,” says Erin.
“I knew I couldn’t help Jon and Olivia and I had to save Ezra and Selah, so I took their hands and we ran.
“I told Ezra to run on and get help. Selah kept saying that I was really bleeding and only when we stopped and I fell to the ground did I realise.
“I had been shot in the abdomen and in the hand. I could hear sirens going off and people rushed to help me – there was blood everywhere.”
“‘Where are my kids?’ I kept asking. A police officer held my hand and I was so afraid. ‘Am I going to die?’ I asked her. I was in agony.”
Erin needed emergency surgery to remove part of her small intestine and repair her colon. Her ring and pinkie fingers were hanging off so she had surgery to save them.
She later learned that Jon had been shot seven times and Olivia three – their injuries had killed them. The shooter also killed the other man on the bridge that day and then himself.
The attack was random and Erin and her family had
just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“My kids helped me through the worst time,” Erin recalls. “I had to be strong for them. But the loss of Jon and Olivia was unimaginable – I wasn’t sure whether I could ever truly heal from it.”
As Erin grew stronger, she heard about a local man, Stephen Ullmer, whose wife Wendy, 36, had passed away suddenly in
her sleep from a heart condition, leaving him with four young boys Liam, now 12, Jack, 11, Silas, nine, and Judah, four.
Wendy and Stephen had been married almost 13 years when she passed away in 2017, and like Erin, he struggled to deal with his loss.
Erin messaged him on Facebook and to her surprise, he replied straight away.
“I guess my message stood out because he’d read my story,” says Erin. “So he knew that I would understand.” “Not long after, I was volunteering at a Christian festival when he came over to me. Out of more than 20,000 people at that concert, our paths crossed.”
“We went for a walk and we became really good friends. There was nothing romantic – falling in love was the last thing on our minds, we just wanted to be there for each other.”
But after a few months, Erin began to feel differently – and so did Stephen.
They both confessed that they had fallen for each other, so they started dating. Both sets of kids got along so well that their relationship felt very natural. Then Stephen took Erin on a scavenger hunt and at the end, he went down on one knee and proposed.
“It was so romantic. Of course I said yes! It felt so right because we had talked about marriage before. All of the kids were thrilled,” says Erin.
The couple married in June 2018. It was a gorgeous white wedding and they were supported by all their family and friends.
“All of our kids have really healed in the last year we have been together,” says Erin. “When we told them we were getting married, we made it clear that I wasn’t going to replace their mum, and that Stephen wasn’t going to replace Jon.
“We told them that we were a new family because our love has multiplied. Honestly, I never thought I would get to love again – I thought that when
I lost Jon, that was it.
“I truly believe that Stephen is a gift to me and my kids. I know that Jon would love him and be grateful to him for looking after us,” Erin continues.
“We will never forget Wendy and Jon and we will love them forever, but we have learned that it’s OK to love again.”