Masons likely to play important role in Malden recovery

MALDEN - Almost wherever one travels on the streets of Malden, piles of ash and rubble are all that remain following the Babb Road Fire that raced through the community on Labor Day.

Even the Mason's Hall was reduced to just ashes and a few small artifacts that volunteers found as they sifted through the basement on Sept. 16, a little over a week after the wind-driven blaze torched some 18,000 acres with the nearby community of Pine City also feeling its effects.

While the rest of the town and surrounding area has been slowly trying to figure out the way forward, the Masons, a magnet of community involvement, seemed to be engaged in overdrive to rebuild their hall and get back to being helping hands to all that ask.

Dozens of Masons from the surrounding area descended on the pit and old rock foundation that once supported the hall. At first they carefully picked through the ashes, finding burnt reminders of not only Malden's Masonic past, but also from upwards of a dozen or more other chapters that are no more.

Malden's chapter had become the repository for what was left from clubs like Ewan, Garfield, Oaksdale, Pullman, Rosalia, Sprague, St. John and others - some 14 in all.

Notable among the salvage was a charred star logo, the stair rail from the hall, an official stamp machine and miscellaneous glassware displayed by Charlene Jacobs on a table.

Jacobs, 75, is as close to a lifelong resident of the area as is possible. The former Charlene Hodgen came to Malden in 1952 and started school there in second grade. She vividly recalled both the school building and post office that was gutted - with red, white and blue paint on the the walls that still stand.

Jacobs would later marry a Rosalia-area farmer, never straying too far from Whitman County.

Jacobs spoke to the importance of the Masons and the work they do and have done - and will do in helping resurrect this one-time district headquarters for the Milwaukee Road railroad.

"This is what we lost," Jacobs said, motioning to the foundation of the building. But it was more than just a building. "It's hard to explain what this chapter does," she said.

Other than to give, give, give.

Surprisingly, the Malden Masons boast a membership of some 200, many who no longer live in the community, but are still dedicated to the cause.

"We have a lot of older members that don't come in and still pay their dues," Jacobs said.

Food seems to be at the center of the Malden Mason's mission as Jacobs tells it.

"We've been feeding the John Wayne Trail riders for six or seven years," Jacobs said. And the group also helps within preparing dinners for fellow Masons and Shriners. "We put on dinners for people who are sick," Jacobs added.

While she is not able to speak officially to the future plans of the Malden Mason's Hall, there was fervor in Jacob's voice when speaking to the future. "We're not going anywhere," Jacobs said. "I don't care if we have to go out and beg for money, we're coming back."

Within a day, the volunteers had the old site all covered and ready to rebuild. Stay tuned for future developments.