Alice Jean McFerguson stood on Terrace Avenue in Altadena and watched her home burn to the ground before dawn on January 7, 2025. Her pastor, Bishop Christopher Milton of Holy Assembly Church of God in Christ, was beside her.
“We took her from that point,” Milton said, at a Monday party celebrating her rebuilt home. “We provided places for her to temporarily stay. We fostered with her insurance company, which was a whole parallel pivot business for her.”
McFerguson, 82, is a widow. A neighbor pulled her from her house the night the fire broke out. The next morning, Milton drove her back to check on the property. They arrived in time to see it collapse.
What followed was eighteen months of displacement. McFerguson, unlike other fire victims, moved only twice, first to temporary housing near Milton’s home in Santa Clarita, then to a longer-term residence in downtown Pasadena.
“She loved it there too,” Milton said. “We care for her.”
Through it all, McFerguson said her church carried her.
“My timeline was just wonderful,” she said. “My church family, my pastor, Mr. C. E. Milton, Lady Turner Milton, and the whole church of God in Christ where I go to as a member. They’ve all been wonderful.”
She said the calls never stopped.
“My phone rang all the time checking on me,” she said. “See how I’m doing. What do I need. Do I want to go out to eat. Things like that. And that made me feel good.”
Her home has now been rebuilt. For Milton, the outcome reframed the disaster entirely.
“What could have been a disaster, which appeared to be a disaster, turned out to be a blessing,” he said.
McFerguson’s return marks one more Altadena address filled again, nineteen months after the Eaton Fire reshaped the community.
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