It found a good home

Published 4:00 pm Saturday, May 7, 2005

Playhouse goes to a family who lost a daughter and mother.

Some say it was meant to be.

When the much anticipated drawing for the Madrona School’s hand-crafted playhouse was held, the couple who won it were due for some good fortune.

Douglas and Linda Evaul have had a devastating year. In January, his oldest daughter Jennie Evaul, 30, was killed in a car crash in Albany, N.Y., leaving her husband Adam to raise the couple’s 18-month-old son Elijah on his own.

In the wake of his daughter’s death, his wife said, Douglas Evaul “wanted to do something in our backyard, to make it a beautiful play area for the grandchildren,” who include two cousins with whom Elijah is close: Baylee, 2, and Killian, 3.

“He wanted it to be more than just a place to play,” Linda Evaul said of her husband. “It was his wish that the children want to be here. He wanted to make it a place the children wanted to come.”

The Evauls had already cleared the backyard and added a swing set, when they got the call that they had won the coveted playhouse, a hand-hewn mini lodge with a loft, front porch and skylights, built by 15 dads of children attending Madrona School in Winslow.

“It felt good that a family in such need of community support was able to receive something from our community, and we were glad,” said Marlene Connolly, a parent and volunteer at Madrona School. “It was meaningful that something that represented our school so well, something of such integrity, was going to this family.”

Madrona School sold over 1,000 tickets for the playhouse drawing, which raised $7,000 for the school’s tuition assistance program, Connolly said.

For the Evauls, “It was a dream come true,” Linda Evaul said. “A great group of men delivered the little playhouse and it’s terrific, a wonderful, wonderful thing, the brightest day in a very sad period in our lives.”

Jennie Evaul was headed to her younger sister Gretchen Picard’s graduation from the FBI Academy when the crash occurred in Albany, New York. The sisters were close friends, who lived not far from one another back East.

Picard and her family will be moving soon to San Diego, meaning the cousins will be split apart for the first time.

The Evauls want their home on Bainbridge to be a place the children come to be with their grandparents, and with each other.

“The little girls are here now, having the time of their lives,” Linda Evaul said. “Elijah will be coming soon, and we are excited to have all three of our beautiful grandchildren here.

“The perfect addition, was this little playhouse.”