A fresh start
Pope County mother of 4 gets first Habitat house
Nichole Ledford, a 28-year-old widow, and her four children live in London in a small mobile home with one working bathroom. It’s not hard to see why she’s so excited to be chosen for the first Habitat for Humanity home in Pope County.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I didn’t react enough — I felt ungrateful — I didn’t know how to act. I’d been trying so long to do this.”
Ledford once had a home, but it burned to the ground about a month after her husband, Charles, died in 2008.
“They said it was arson, but I don’t know why somebody would do that,” she said.
“We lost all the kids’ beds. … I lost all of my pictures, everything we had to remember him by. I had some pictures outside of the house, but not very many.”
Ledford doesn’t discuss the details of her husband’s death. It’s something she will have a conversation with her children about when they’re older, she said.
After he died, she lived with his parents for a while, and it was during that time that her house burned.
She moved the mobile home onto the property about a year ago.
“It’s very miserable; I can tell you that,” she said.
Two tragedies within weeks would be hard for anyone to handle, and Ledford said her children kept her going.
“If it wasn’t for them, I would never have been able to get through any of it,” she said.
Her husband was a welder, and she stayed home with the children.
“I didn’t work; I couldn’t afford to. All my check would go to day care,” she said.
Ledford is soft-spoken and shy, and she normally wouldn’t share her life story with strangers, but she’s been doing it a lot lately.
“I’m not good at public speaking. I just want them (Habitat for Humanity) to know I’m grateful,” she said.
Ledford dropped out of Russellville High School in 11th grade when she got pregnant with Jaiden, her 10year-old daughter.
Although Ledford earned her GED, she said she regrets giving up too easily and not completing her education.
Her dream is for her children to attend college after high school, and not be like her “and let it end there,” she said.
“I want them to do better than I did,” she said.
“I try to tell them every day: ‘You don’t want to be like me in school,’ and they say, ‘ Why? You’re OK.’ I say, I may look OK, but nobody wants to take somebody who didn’t graduate high school and have experience.”
She worked a security job for a year, but she quit in March.
“It got to be too much; the hours were killing me,” she said of her midnight-to8 a.m. shift. “The kids never saw me.”
In addition to Jaiden, she has three boys: Zachary, 8; C.J., 5; and Chase, 4.
She said it was “luck, really,” that led her to apply for the first home through Habitat for Humanity of Pope County.
Ledford was in the Social Security Administration Office to get papers for a Rural Development loan for a house. She had been denied because of her poor credit, she said.
She saw a piece of paper with the information about Habitat for Humanity of Pope County looking for applicants for the first home it would build.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” she said.
Habitat board member Jonathan Kelley called her about three weeks later to give her the good news.
“I said, ‘ No way; it’s that easy? Are you kidding me?’’’
Lori Grace, president of the Habitat board, said 24 people, including Ledford, applied for the first home.
“Our three requirements are ability to pay, willingness to partner and need,” Grace said. “To me, it pretty much boils down to if they meet all those requirements, the family with the greatest need [is chosen].
“I’m a big believer, well, it was God. She was meant to be there at that time to pick up that application, and it worked out.”
The four-bedroom, two-bath, approximately 1,200square-foot home will be built on a lot at Sixth Street and Ithaca Avenue, the purchase of which was finalized Thursday.
Grace said Habitat bought three pieces of property so that building can be ongoing.
The estimated $80,000 to pay for the home will come from grants and donations from individuals and churches, Grace said.
“To me, it’s the community embracing us. That’s why we’re succeeding so far,” she said.
She said the contractor is John Kroencke of Russellville, and construction on the house will begin in June.
Ledford will have to put in sweat equity by helping in the home’s construction, and she also is required to attend homeowner classes, which she has started.
“I’m not the greatest at saving money because I have four kids,” she said. “I got good tips on what would make it easier to budget. … It’s a good idea to put money back for repairs.”
She said her children often ask her to drive by the lot, and they’ve been planning their rooms for a long time.
“They started talking about that before I even got approved for it because they knew that I was trying to,” she said.
“They had a huge I-want list. ‘Mom, I want this, I want that.’ They’re excited about it.”
Jaiden, wearing an animalprint dress and silver sparkly shoes, said she’s excited “because there’s more room besides the trailer.”
Plus, it’s “really, really hard” to live with three boys, she added.
Zachary said he’s looking forward to the new home “mostly because it’s a wide-open space.”
He also will have his own room.
“They have to share,” he said, pointing to his younger brothers as they all gathered in the London Elementary School Library.
“I like the Cardinals,” Zachary said. “I want my room to be red.”
Ledford said all four children play baseball through the Russellville Youth Baseball Association, and her mother and stepfather help out, taking them here and there.
“I want to paint my own room,” 5- year- old C.J. said. When he saw the adults laugh, he said, “No, really — I’m going to paint bulls everywhere!” His team is the Bulls. Ledford said it will be nice for her children to be able to have friends over.
“I don’t let them have friends over right now because I don’t have room, and Jaiden likes to have friends over every single weekend,” she said, laughing.
Ledford hasn’t stopped long enough to dream about what she wants.
“I really don’t know — just to have enough room; that’s all I care about,” she said.
Asked how he thinks his mother will do, Zachary said, “I think it’s going to be trouble for her — four kids and just one mom.”
Ledford said Zachary and Jaiden are like “little parents” and help with the younger two when she’s busy.
All the children do chores, Ledford said, and if they want extras throughout the year, she makes them earn them.
“They know the situation I’m in and they’re in,” she said. “They do a lot more than normal kids as far as picking up and everything else.”
Zachary said his favorite thing about his mother is, “She loves me — she cares about us.”
Jaiden said her mother “tries to get us what we want, but sometimes she doesn’t have the money, but she still tries.”
Ledford said she hopes the new home will give her family a fresh start.
As soon as the house is completed, she plans to go back to work.
“I like caring for people — that’s the kind of work I would like to do,” she said.