The Tubbs fire in 2017 wiped out more than 5,000 structures in a Northern California county. Homeowners faced challenges, but hundreds were able to rebuild within two years.
Donna and Bob Williamson call the strange souvenirs pulled from the ashes of their home their Museum of Misery.
There is the green wine bottle that melted, its glass neck drooping, that looks like it was pulled from a Salvador Dalí painting. Silver forks that fused into a thick, lumpy utensil, its prongs fanning out like a porcupine’s needles.
A platter they received on their wedding day that read, “For better or for worse.” Just a shard survived. The piece that says, “For better.”
The collection sits in cardboard boxes at the back of the garage off their new house in Santa Rosa, Calif., a city of about 175,000 people in the Sonoma wine country.