By Tricia Pursell
MIDDLEBURG — Daniel Thomas Ewing was the healthy one in the family.
Talented, too. He was a logger, a computer scientist and was operating his own software engineering business.
“He was big on science and space,” Liisa Ewing said. “He was an inventor.”
Daniel was also a father, and Liisa’s husband.
One year ago, the man who had never had any major medical problems began to experience shortness of breath.
Doctors found Daniel had a hole in his heart, and told him that he could wait it out or face the possibility of lung failure.
Surgery was scheduled for October, when Liisa was seven months’ pregnant with the couple’s seventh child.
Despite the 90 percent odds that he would live through the operation, “He never came out of surgery,” Liisa said.
Daniel Thomas Ewing was 31.
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The tragedy left a grieving widow with six children — and one on the way.
“It was kind of hard on them,” Liisa said of her children, now aged 7, 6, 5, 4, 2 and 1. Her eldest, Benjamin, 7, “wanted to know right away who was going to make the money,” Liisa said.
Josiah, 6, wondered whether they were going to get a new daddy.
“That kind of talk floated around the dinner table,” she said.
Meanwhile, Liisa had to find a way to deal with the loss.
“Parents should never have to bury their kids,” said Liisa’s mother, Karen Royer. “It was hard seeing her grieve.”
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Lisa and Daniel met at college in Pensacola, Fla. They were married in May 2001.
First came Benjamin.
“He’s very responsible for 7,” Liisa says.
Then Josiah.
“He has a soft heart, takes care of his sisters.”
Then Abigail. “She loves to cook, help mom in the kitchen.”
And Hadassah.
“She’s the princess of the family.”
Maranatha.
“She is going through a potty-training stage.”
Payden.
“Heading into the terrible 2s, very active.”
And Caleb. “The baby of the family.”
Daniel Thomas Ewing cherished his family.
“Work,” Liisa said, “was very much second place.”
As a family, they loved to feed the ducks by a park where they lived in West Virginia, and Liisa has fond memories of walking the trail there with Daniel — especially when she was hoping to induce labor with Abigail.
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Liisa dealt with “what if” questions as she struggled to come to terms with Daniel’s death. But now, as she reflects, she finds strength in her faith.
“The Lord did it in such a way that I can’t really question it,” she said. “It was his time.”
Fewer than three months after her husband’s death, she gave birth to Caleb.
On Christmas Day.
At 2 a.m. Dec. 25, she started getting contractions and called her mother.
“You want to open a Christmas present from Dan?” she had asked.
After that, the responsibilities grew, and Liisa had to learn how to survive, while also recognizing that all their plans together had been so suddenly shattered.
“We’ve been planning many years to build a house,” she said. The couple and their six children had been living in and remodeling a two-and-a-half bedroom house in West Virginia.
“All those plans were derailed,” she said.
She could have continued the remodeling on her own, she said, “but not with seven children to take care of.”
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Liisa decided to return to her native Middleburg.
Upon hearing of her plight and her wishes, friends, relatives and acquaintances donated time and money to help the family start over.
She and her seven children now live in a two-story, four-bedroom, three-bathroom home on a property adjoining that of her parents.
“There’s been so much given, that I really have no reason to complain,” Liisa said.
“There’s been so much support,” added Karen, her mother. “When one person can’t help, there’s someone else stepping in to help her. A lot of people don’t have that.”
The home is close to Liisa’s family, which she said is what she and Daniel had been planning.
“Once this piece of property came up, that was the Lord’s doing,” she said. “I made the choice, and I don’t regret it.”
Much of the house, she said, was created with her sixth child, Payden, in mind. As he is heading into the “terrible 2s,” she knew she would need to keep her eyes on him at all times.
“Visibility is key,” Liisa said.
Half-walls, which allow her to see into several rooms at a time, separate the kitchen from the living room area, and the living room from the schoolroom area, where Liisa homeschools the two eldest children each day.
Organization is very important. She continues to use Daniel’s idea, which assigns a color to each child.
In the garage, seven storage closets line one wall — each in a different color and each one displaying a child’s name.
She gets help from family and friends, and from a much-appreciated nanny who “is due for a pay raise next month,” Liisa said with a laugh.
She also credits God for giving her the strength to keep going.
“He’s faithful,” she said.
Life, Liisa told Daniel when they married, is never going to be boring.
“It’s not going to be boring now, either,” she said, “since he left seven kids.”
-- E-mail comments to tpursell@dailyitem.com
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Assistance was global
By Tricia Pursell
The Daily Item
A worldwide effort culminated in what recent widow and mother of seven Liisa Ewing, of Middleburg, calls “the House that God built.”
Ewing, 30, her children and husband were living in a two-bedroom house in West Virginia when her spouse, Daniel, 31, died in October.
She and her children then moved to her native Middleburg, where she bought land adjoining her parents’ property.
Family, friends, neighbors and acquaintances combined to build and help pay for a two-story, four-bedroom house with three bathrooms.
Her father, Roger Royer, and her friend from Pensacola Christian College launched efforts to build the home that she and her children needed.
Her friend worked on a Web page that soon generated donations and support from people all over the world, not to mention those living in the Central Susquehanna Valley.
Construction took fewer than three months, and Ewing and her children moved into their new house in June.
“It went from a cornfield to a house,” Ewing said.
Many churches jumped on board right away to support the project after hearing of the need.
“A lot of fellow believers,” she said. “A real testimony to the way the Lord works, and the way the church should work.”
“People were crawling out of the woodwork, asking if they could help,” said Karen Royer, Ewing’s mother.
Thousands of dollars were donated by a host of people. And many stopped by to offer their labor, from seeding grass, to moving furniture, to baby-sitting.
“We are not in a needy situation by any stretch of the imagination at this point,” Ewing said.
Their “wall of blessing,” in the dining area, shows why.
A large map of the world pinpoints the locations of people who have supported her family since Daniel’s death.
The donors can be found far beyond the borders of the United States.
A support beam, stretching the length of the house’s basement, contains signatures and comments from those who have helped Liisa and her children, whether financially, through prayers, or just around the house.
“In a way, it’s our testimonial beam,” Ewing said.
-- E-mail comments to tpursell@dailyitem.com
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