Blessing in Disguise: Home of Quincy local is rebuilt as an answer to unspoken prayer

DeJuana Ellis stood on her front porch welcoming friends and family to her newly built home Saturday morning.

“Go in - look around,” she told them as they walked up, some bearing gifts.

The three bedroom/two bathroom house sits where her great-grandmother, Charlotte Ellis Barrow’s house once stood.

It’s on a little winding street off North Adams, with only one way in and one way out, in a neighborhood known as Hungry Level.

Ellis’ friends and family helped her celebrate the completion of her new home with a house blessing party.

That day - April 2 - also would have been her great-grandmother’s 122 nd birthday.

DeJuana Ellis’s new home is located where her great-grandmother’s house, which was passed down to Ellis, once stood.

Ellis has been living in what was once her great-grandmother's house for 23 years.

Before then she lived in the Orlando area but moved back to Quincy in the late 90s to help her father take care of his mother, her grandmother.

On an October morning in 1999, she was getting her grandmother ready for an appointment in Tallahassee.

Her father went to drop off two of her children at daycare, but he never made it back home.

“I was getting my grandma ready to go to Tallahassee and waiting on him to come back,” Ellis said. “They told me my dad died in a car accident, but my children needed somebody with them.”

Her children were seriously injured and had to be life-flighted to Tallahassee, but they survived.

After her father died, Ellis’ great-grandmother’s home was passed down to her.

Unfortunately, more tragedy was in store for the young mother of three.

Ellis suffered a stroke and aneurysm in 2003, just three days before her 34 th birthday.

DeJuana Ellis (center) smiles as she gathers with family and friends during the blessing of her home.

She said doctors didn’t expect her to live longer than two and a half hours; instead, she survived.

After her stroke and aneurysm, she had to learn to walk and talk again, and she still walks with a limp and sometimes struggles to speak.

Ellis said her three children and her faith in God helped her get through the tough times.

“Without them I couldn’t even make it,” Ellis said.

In June 2018, her youngest so0,n DeVonte Robinson, who narrowly escaped death during that car crash in 1999, was shot and killed in Tallahassee at the age of 20.

And four months after that, Hurricane Michael hit.

“After the storm, we didn’t have power for two weeks,” Ellis said.

The catastrophic hurricane damaged Ellis’ home, but it wasn’t until last year that she knew to what extent.

In 2021, she found out more than 75 percent of her house was damaged, after applying for help from Rebuild Florida.

She was told the house was beyond repair.

DeJuana Ellis enjoys the warm weather while sitting in a rocking chair on her front porch.

Rebuild Florida is a program under the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity created to help Florida’s long-term recovery efforts from recent hurricanes.

Ellis said she was told although they couldn’t repair her old house, they could build her a brand new one.

She was skeptical at first.

“I was shocked,” Ellis said. “The caseworker said they were going to build me a new house; I said what’s the gag?”

She said being told her house would have to be torn down was terrifying.

Ellis, who lives on a fixed income, only bringing in $841 a month in disability benefits, worried about whether she would have to pay the money back for the house, and the cost of homeowner’s insurance.

But there was no gag.

For five months, she stayed at a hotel in Tallahassee while her house was being built.

When she saw the finished product, her first thought was it was perfect.

“I called everybody and their momma,” Ellis said. “I was just thrilled.”

She also said although she was concerned about being able to pay it in the beginning, the homeowner’s insurance is manageable.

“We don’t never know where our blessings come from,” Ellis said. “It can be in disguise.”

Ellis also said she has received an overwhelming amount of support from her community, including neighbors, friends and members of the two churches she attends – First Presbyterian Church of Quincy and Arnett Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

She said the members of First Presbyterian even built handicap accessible steps onto her front porch to make it easier for her to get into her house.

Karen Hennessy, one of Ellis’ friends who attended the house blessing, said Ellis doesn’t just have friends, she has “divine connections.”

“She used to come stay with me during the storms,” Tamra Erde, another of Ellis’ ‘divine connections’, said to Hennessy. “Now she has a house that’s safe.”

Ellis stayed with Tamra Erde and her husband Chris Erde who is the pastor at First Presbyterian when Hurricane Michael ripped through Quincy.

“Peace be to this house,” Veraline Farmer said before reciting a prayer.

Farmer, who belongs to Arnett Chapel, said she and Ellis’ are sisters in Christ.

Following Farmer’s prayer, First Presbyterian Pastor Chris Erde also blessed the house.

Pastor Erde said the house isn’t just a house: it’s a home.

He said with love, Ellis’ great-grandmother made the house a home, and Ellis continues by doing the same.

“I just give God all the glory because he has done so much for me,” Ellis said.

Erin Hill - erin@gadsdencountytimes.com

Blessing in Disguise: Home of Quincy local is rebuilt as an answer to unspoken prayer

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Blessing in Disguise: Home of Quincy local is rebuilt as an answer to unspoken prayer

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County combines two summer work programs after low turnout last year

Gadsden County Times Legals – 4/14

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