MADISON, Wis. — A Madison family is starting 2023 without the home that’s been in their family for generations after it caught fire Sunday.
The fire broke out at the home on West Lakeside Street just before 6 a.m. on New Year’s Day. It happened just days before the first anniversary of Derek Rose’s grandmother Ruby Rose’s death on Jan. 5.
“My grandma passed a year ago, so it’s bringing up other memories,” Derek Rose told News 3 Now at the scene on Monday.
Many of his memories with his grandmother went up in smoke with her house.
“All the fire went all the way up to the attic and it’s just you see the roof,” Rose said, “the whole attic is burnt through.”
RELATED: Fire displaces 4, caused $100K in damage, Madison Fire Department says
Firefighters used a thermal imaging camera to find and extinguish flames and heat in the walls and the attic, the Madison Fire Department said Sunday.
The fire department has not said what caused the blaze, but on a GoFundMe page, Rose described it as an electrical fire that started in the attic.
The upper floor and attic of the house suffered most of the smoke and fire damage, he said, while water damage soaked the lower level and everything inside.
The fire happened just hours into the new year, the morning after Rose was hard at work fixing the boiler in the basement.
“You know when you do so much work it’s like, ‘Oh this is never going to get done,’” Rose said, “and my thought, my last thought when I left here was that, ‘Nothing more worse could happen.’ And yeah.”
The house, and Ruby Rose, have been hallmarks of Lakeside Street. The single mother bought it in the early 1970s, according to her grandson.
“Basically, my grandma was one of the first African Americans to buy a house on this street,” he said.
After Ruby died last January, Derek said he and his four uncles who lived there were renovating the building to rent out.
The Madison Fire Department estimates the building suffered $100,000 in damages, but Rose is pushing through with his plan.
“I think it’s the best served to get it fixed up and try to do the same thing where it was for my grandma try to rent it out to people that have family, single-family mothers,” Rose said, “because like my grandma did it with eight children.”
Throughout the years, he said kids found a warm meal and warm care in his grandmother’s halls.
“If you have eight children, if they have one friend, that’s eight friends, so even like now I’m getting calls from all around the community,” he said.
Family members convinced Rose to set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for repairs; as of Monday night, that effort had raised nearly $2,000 of its $10,000 goal.
Rose said it means everything to him to refurbish a blessing he and so many other generations got growing up.
“It’s not about money like I even tell this with my uncles and my cousins, it’s about legacy,” he said.
Click or tap here to visit the GoFundMe page.
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