“When we come together, it’s amazing what love can do!”
When Dorothy Mullins’ water pipe froze, Good Samaritans went to help thaw it out—and were shocked to find that her farmhouse didn’t have an indoor bathroom. So the community rallied together to build her one!
Dorothy Mullins slid a log into the kitchen woodstove, then held the coffee pot under the tap and turned the handle. Nothing happened. “Pipe is frozen again,” the 66-year-old groaned. Dorothy and her partner, Damon, had spent decades eking out a living on the 42-acre farm outside Peterstown, West Virginia. Sadly, she’d lost Damon three years earlier and now lived alone in the 250-yearold farmhouse— cooking on the woodstove and drawing water from a pipe running from a nearby spring into her kitchen. But now it was frozen solid.
“Gonna buy electric pipe warming tape when my Social Security check comes,” she told Sandi Bowling, who runs the local food bank, when Dorothy stopped in that cold January day for some bottled water.
“This is your lucky day,” Sandi said with a smile. “Pastor Becky just told me someone donated money to help folks like yourself with home repairs.”
Dorothy had never been one to ask for help. But, without Damon, she had to admit, she sure could use some. “That would be wonderful,” she told Sandi.
A ripple effect of heartfelt help
Sandi reached out to Steve Boothe and his church friend, Fred Terry, and they headed out to Dorothy’s place. They de-iced the pipe then installed insulation to prevent it from freezing again. But to their dismay, when they turned on the faucet, icy cold water merely trickled out. Steve looked around for a water heater but couldn’t find one— and he didn’t see something else. “Where’s the bathroom?” he asked.
“My outhouse is out back about a hundred yards,” Dorothy said, and pointing to a large basin on the back porch, she told them, “That’s my bathtub.”
Steve and Fred shared an astonished glance. Sure, their county was poor, but they had no idea there were people living without hot water or indoor plumbing.