Hurricane Katrina survivors and their Montevideo hosts parted ways after disagreements

Jill Burcum:

In the devastation after Hurricane Katrina, this Minnesota story appeared to epitomize how disasters bring out the best in people.

Stunned by the evacuees' desperation, a white Montevideo family of five opened its hearts and home to an impoverished, three-generation black family of eight from Louisiana.

The Singleton family -- a mother, grandmother and six children who had never left the South -- arrived in September to a red-carpet welcome in the western Minnesota city of 5,300 residents. But the best of intentions weren't enough to bridge differences in background and the strain of having 13 under one roof.

Barely a month after arriving in Montevideo, Nicole and Dorothy (Dot) Singleton, the mother and grandmother of the Louisiana family, broke ties with their hosts, Tracey and Tanya Thornbury, and moved to the Twin Cities.

The parting was painful and sometimes ugly.

The Thornburys called the Montevideo police to their home. When it was time to take the kids out of the Thornbury home and to the Twin Cities, Dot Singleton asked Chippewa County Family Services to assist.

Each family still feels bruised, though calm has come with time and distance. At this point, the families talk by phone and hope they can forge a new relationship despite the disastrous end to their old one.

"We still love each other. You can have a family feud and still love each other," said Tracey Thornbury, 38, a trucker who still calls the Singleton kids frequently from the road.

Dot Singleton, 52, the children's grandmother, said she holds no grudges. "I have nothing against the Thornburys," she said. "They've done a lot for us. They brought us out of poverty. But it was two different cultures. We just didn't click."

No agency tracks how many families have privately sheltered Hurricane Katrina victims. It's unclear how many other offers like the Thornburys' have unraveled.

But as altruism abounded in the weeks after the storm, it was clear that caring for storm victims would be challenging, especially when aid was far from New Orleans and from people very different than those they assisted.

The families had connected after Tanya Thornbury, 36, e-mailed a Louisiana shelter offering to take in a displaced mother and child. Nicole, 33, the children's mother, contacted her by phone. The Thornburys, a same-sex couple, agreed to take the entire family of eight.

Tracey Thornbury, who drove to Baton Rouge to pick up Dot and the children in early September, saw immediately that her family and the Singletons came from different worlds.

As Tracey drove a donated RV north, she discovered that the Singletons had never been outside Louisiana. At one point, Esaw Singleton, 11, asked about the furry creature in a field they just passed.

It was a cow.

As they clambered out of the RV in front of their Montevideo home, the wide-eyed Singleton kids took in the mayor and other city officials, there to greet them with balloons and toys.

What really impressed them was the quiet. They could safely go outside to play -- unlike their old New Orleans neighborhood.

In the first few weeks, the newness of the situation and the excitement of having the town rally around them helped things run smoothly. Donations of clothes, toys, furniture and money arrived every day for a time.

At night, Ryan Thornbury, 12, and Esaw Singleton, 11, would sneak out of bed and gleefully play video games.

But goodwill gave way to tension.

About a week after the Singleton kids arrived, there was a dispute over Tanya's computer.

Having given up her office so Dot could have a bedroom, Tanya had tucked her desktop away in the laundry room so she'd have space of her own to cruise eBay, the online auction site.

After finding that the area didn't have radio stations playing the hip hop and rap that they liked, Nicole and Helen wanted to download music from the Internet. Tanya said no, partly to protect the computer from viruses and partly to preserve a teeny area of private space. Nicole and Helen didn't understand.

In the crowded house, which has five bedrooms but limited space in the living room and dining room, tensions built.

There were charges that the Singletons weren't doing their fair share of the chores. There were differences over what types of movies the kids could watch.

Then there were letters from Nicole's boyfriend, in jail for felony burglary in Louisiana. The Thornburys worried that the boyfriend would get out on parole and come to Montevideo, so they read the letters.

On Oct. 5, Nicole left for the Twin Cities, taking some of the donated money with her.

She is living at a Roseville motel and working as a housekeeper at another area hotel. She did not return phone messages seeking an interview.

Dot stayed behind with the kids. The Thornburys grew concerned about her, too, and believed she was drinking a lot of whiskey every night.

Things came to a head on Oct. 16 when Montevideo police were called in to check out a domestic situation.

On that night, Tracey and Dot acknowledge, Dot had been drinking. The women got into an argument about the donated money. Tracey took offense, feeling that Dot was implying that the Thornburys weren't sharing the money.

The women said that they yelled at each other and that Dot encouraged 16-year-old Brittany to begin hitting Tracey.

After getting Brittany under control, Tracey angrily searched Dot's room. She found an odd-shaped cigarette, thought it was marijuana and called police, who determined it was a regular cigarette.

Dot acknowledges that she did start drinking again in the Thornburys' home.

The domestic violence that happened also was the result of strain, she said. "It just had got to that point. And the Devil, he just got in there between everybody with a match and set things off."

Shortly before Halloween, Nicole Singleton found a Twin Cities church offering a north Minneapolis house rent-free for a year to hurricane survivors.

Dot and the kids arrived in the Twin Cities on Oct. 28. Their new home has a large dining room and kitchen and a big yard. The kids, she said, are settling in and enrolled in Minneapolis public schools. The family plans to stay in Minnesota.

Dot said she misses Montevideo and appreciates how much the town did for her and the Thornburys. That few black people live in the area -- 23 in the entire county, according to the 2000 census -- had nothing to do with deciding to leave.

Dot said she has prayed a lot and has found peace about how their stay in Montevideo ended.

The Thornburys took in far more people than they originally intended, Dot said. It was a generous offer, but it simply couldn't work to have all those kids in one house and two different parenting styles.

In Montevideo, Tracey and Tanya Thornbury are still sorting through their emotions but hope to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Singletons.

They don't regret offering to help but said they wouldn't open their home in the same way.

"I'm not sure what God is thinking about at this point," Tracey said. "If it had any positive effect on the kids that they will remember at some point, that's a good thing. They'll know there are people who care."

Katrina cost 1,000 lives. How many will it save?