'The only place she's ever known': Family loses third generation house in fire

BOSTON - The white house on Mercer Street is where Barbara Welch was born and raised, as was her mother, 98-year-old Julia Gatulis.

“This house is the only place she’s ever known, she was born in this house, and it’s the only place she’s ever lived,” Barbara Welch explained to Boston 25 News.

But now the house is a smoky shell after a two-alarm fire ripped through it a month ago.

“I just kept praying, please let everybody get out alive – that’s all, my only wish, let everybody get out alive,” Barbara said.

Her daughter, Judy, also lived in that home with her three sons.

Judy was asleep when the alarm sounded and opened the bedroom door to a wall of thick smoke.

“She went under the bed, got a couple of deep breaths, got up on the bed, kicked out the screen and went out on the back porch,” Barbara said.

Stranded on the deck, Judy called for help while her son and a neighbor rescued Julia from her room, carrying her wheelchair.

Judy was in the intensive care unit with a burned esophagus and is still on an inhaler now, nearly a month later.

As Julia recovers in a rehab facility, Barbara says all her mother wants is to return to the only home she knows -- the place she was born and hoped to die.

But the family is now facing a far different future.

"She's just like, what's going to happen to her? Where's she going to go?" Barbara explained.
Investigators say the blaze was caused by Judy's son's HP laptop, which was a gift from his grandmother.

Because insurance isn't fully covering the repairs or contents, the family has started a GoFundMe page.

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