Phyllis Cremer is trying to describe the frenetic, shades-of-gray days after the Eaton Fire decimated swaths of Altadena and Pasadena.
“Do you know how you feel after a death in the family?” she asks. “This feels like the day after the funeral, when you look around and everyone is living their lives, riding their bikes, and you’ve got this pain. At the same time you need the juxtaposition, having to make so many decisions and then doing something normal.”
Cremer, principal of St. Elizabeth Parish School in Altadena, and her husband Douglas, a deacon at St. Elizabeth Church, have spent the days after the Eaton Fire taking stock of difficult news.
Of the school’s 100 families, 26 have lost their homes. Three teachers have suffered the same loss. Cremer said if you add alumni families whose homes have also burned, that number closes in to 50%. About 75% of the school population had to evacuate, the first wave returning to their homes in Altadena and Pasadena this week.
The 105-year-old school remains standing, although unhealthy air, much cleanup and no power prevents students and staff from returning to the Lake Avenue campus.
“We’re meeting to get a sense of where everyone’s at, what the needs are, do we place kids within schools in the nearby area, what is the immediate fix?” Cremer said.
For someone who has spent the past seven years as principal in supersonic mode, any advice to surrender to the situation is a struggle.
“I don’t know that word. I hit the ground running when I get in and when I leave,” Cremer said. “The needs are so vast I can’t do it myself and I’m ever so thankful for people who have reached out.”
Aside from her superintendent Paul Escala, Cremer said support has come from the Department of Catholic Schools, Ramona Convent in Alhambra and St. Andrew’s School in Pasadena. Cremer borrowed her counterpart’s room at nearby Assumption School in Pasadena to hold office hours. St. Edward the Confessor School in Dana Point held a “Jeans for Jesus” day to raise more than $1,000 to help out. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has established a Wildfire Victims Emergency Relief Fund at https://lacatholics.org/california-fires/.
Enid Keiser, a parent of a school alumni, set up a GoFundMe campaign that has raised $11,770 as of Jan. 17.
“It is more than a school, it is a loving community that wraps their arms around every family,” Keiser said, adding the funds will go toward school uniforms, school supplies and whatever else the school deems necessary.
At Holy Angels School in Arcadia, principal Ashley Reagan Dunster decided to dedicate a portion of funds raised through the school’s annual jogathon to St. Elizabeth’s. “Eaton Strong: Run to Rebuild-United Against the Flames” hopes to raise $80,000 by Jan. 31.
“We decided to focus on the families of St. Elizabeth because they are not only part of our local community, but they share in the same mission of faith and service that we hold dear at Holy Angels,” Reagan Dunster said. “As a neighboring school, we feel a deep sense of responsibility to support them, especially in this time of need.”
Jackie Ziomek, a staff member at Holy Angels, also works as counselor at St. Elizabeth, connecting the two schools in a strong bond, Reagan Dunster said.
“By raising money for a local Catholic school where so many families have lost their homes, we hope our students learn the value of community and the importance of stepping up for others in need,” she added. “This experience teaches them that their actions, no matter how small, can make a difference in rebuilding lives.”
Community is what Cremer said her family has found in the Altadena school.
“We’re a mixed-race couple, and we love the diversity not only in race but also socio-economic status that we have here. Our daughters know about pupusas and lumpia because of that.”
From the parishioners of St. Elizabeth who are holding a “live-away” drive for those who have lost everything, to pastor Rev. Modesto Lewis-Perez and associate pastor Rev. Diuver Martinez, the community is showing up for the families.
Lewis-Perez mourned the physical structures lost, along with the memories associated with them.
“But we will rebuild because we still have one another,” he wrote to parishioners.
Cremer said she received a heartening phone call in the immediate days after the fires. The call came from the Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary, based in Canada. It was their nuns who started the Altadena school in 1919.
“A year after that came the Spanish flu, and the sisters survived that,” Cremer said. She invoked that episode in her school’s history again in 2020, rallying the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Speaking with some of the religious the other night was an absolutely centering moment,” Cremer said. “They’ve helped so many people on the margins, and for them to reach out asking how they can help us, I realized we have good DNA. We’re going to be okay. I want us to be beacon of stability, of hope and a future we haven’t even begun.”