© 2014, Ida Linehan Young
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF), and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing program.
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Printed on acid-free paper
Cover design & layout by Todd Manning
Published by
CREATIVE PUBLISHERS
an imprint of CREATIVE BOOK PUBLISHING
a Transcontinental Inc. associated company
P.O. Box 8660, Stn. A
St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador A1B 3T7
Printed in Canada
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Linehan Young, Ida, 1964-, author
No turning back: surviving the Linehan family tragedy / Ida Linehan Young.
ISBN 978-1-77103-056-4 (pbk.)
1. Linehan Young, Ida, 1964-. 2. Linehan Young, Ida, 1964- --Homes and haunts. 3. Burns and scalds--Patients--Newfoundland and Labrador--North Harbour (Saint Mary's Bay)--Biography. 4. Fires--Casualties--Newfoundland and Labrador--North Harbour (Saint Mary's Bay). 5. Fires--Newfoundland and Labrador--North Harbour (Saint Mary's Bay). 6. Home accidents--Newfoundland and Labrador--North Harbour (Saint Mary's Bay). 7. Bereavement--Psychological aspects. 8. North Harbour (Saint Mary's Bay, N.L.)--Biography. I. Title.
FC2199.N673Z49 2014 363.3709718 C2014-904690-1
To all my Linehan siblings both living and deceased, I dedicate this book.
Mary, as a big sister you can overcome any challenges in this life. I love you and your son Scott.
Eddy, you are always kind and we both have had a special connection from forever. I love you and Irena, Anna and Patrick.
Neil, your quiet perspective on this whole tragic series of lifechanging events is powerful. I love you and Trudy, Shayne and Kirsten and their families.
Larry, you have had more to deal with in your lifetime than anyone will ever know, I admire your strength. I love you and Caroline.
No words can be written that will convey the loss you suffered and how you stood strong and protected us over the years. I love you Mom and I love you Dad in heaven.
Thomas we have not had an easy life but I wouldn’t want to go through it with anyone else, I love you. Thank you for your love, encouragement and support.
Sharon, I have loved you the longest and I love the beautiful woman you have become. You can accomplish anything and have a special guardian angel.
Stacey, I love your kind heart. Trust that heart, you are awesome – you will show the world what I know when you get “discovered”.
Shawna, I love the baby who has blossomed into a beautiful funny young woman. You will make an amazing, confident mother.
If every community had the “North Harbour Gene” we would all be better off. Thanks for being my True North and my haven in hard times.
Preface
Part 1
Part 2 – Going Home!
Part 3
Epilogue
Linehan Family Album
In the early morning hours of June 19th, 1980 a tragedy unfolded in the tiny community of North Harbour, St. Mary’s Bay. It haunts people to this day. Over thirty years later it is very difficult to get people to talk about what happened those many years before.
Early that morning, Mike Tremblett and his son Michael were getting ready to go fishing and were in the beach a few hundred feet from the Linehan house. Mike looked up and saw smoke in the sky over the hill and told his son that he believed “Eddy’s house was afire.”
Mike went to the house while Michael alerted the older couple who were the nearest neighbours then got his own wife and family up before going to help his father.
At the other end of the Harbour, Ben Power was also getting ready to go fishing and, seeing the smoke, he used binoculars to approximate the location of the Linehan house. He got his wife Dorothy out of bed and told her to start calling people as he jumped in his truck and headed up through the Harbour with his horn blaring to alert the neighbours that something was wrong.
Within the next few minutes, as neighbours began to arrive, the house was destroyed by fire.
For the people who read about this tragedy in 1980 that may have been the end of it, a passing thought and perhaps a prayer for those poor people and what they must be suffering.
For the people who lived through it, and the people who lived with it, it was only the beginning.
For me it was a long and painful journey. If you venture onward I will take you from the raging inferno, through my time in the hospital and a healing process culminating many years later in my own forgiveness of myself for living.
This book is written from the eyes and from the emotions of one who lived it – me! It is a genuine account in great detail of things I know, things I learned as I went, and things that I didn’t know until the very recent past as I put together the story of my family, the Linehans of North Harbour.