OUTLET: The Beacon
Nicole Bartneck still has the stuffed koala bear a stranger gave her after her younger sister died in a Christmas Day fire.
And every year since her little sister’s death, she has helped her family host a golf tournament to benefit children.
Reaching out to help others, even if they never get to know her, is one of the things that keeps this Virginia Tech freshman grounded.
On Dec. 25, 2004, the Bartneck family home burned to ashes, and Nicole’s sister, 4-year-old Kristen Bartneck, died of smoke inhalation. Their cousin, Amanda Fernwood, and aunt, Jill Bartneck, also died in the fire, sparked by candles.
Parents Steve and Patty were hospitalized for weeks in critical condition.
Nicole, then 9, escaped through a window and was in Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters for two weeks.
“I thought Kristen was right behind me,” she said. While hospitalized, Nicole learned of her only sibling’s death from her grandmother.
The community rallied around the family, with neighbors, schools, soccer club and churches providing meals, household goods and clothing.
The outpouring included strangers.
“A little girl wrote to me while I was in the hospital, and she sent me her favorite Christmas present,” said Nicole, who is 18 now. “I will never forget that; I still have her koala bear at home.”
It aided the long healing process.
“It’s unbelievably difficult to have to need help,” said Steve Bartneck. “Many nights, Nicole and I would sit up, talking and crying, just trying to make sense of it all.”
Steve, Patty and Nicole all maintain the grief was eased by a refusal to let Kristen’s life be defined by her loss.
“We couldn’t change her death, no matter how much we wanted to,” said Patty Bartneck. “But Kristen had to be more than a tragedy for us; we needed to celebrate her life.”
“We just tried to make something good come from something bad,” said Nicole, who graduated from Bayside High’s Health Sciences Academy.
Inspired by her experience at CHKD, she is studying biological sciences with the goal of working in the medical field.
In 2005, Patty’s friend and co-worker, Jill Maloney, suggested they hold a golf tournament for charity, in Kristen’s memory. Their employer, Tidewater Mortgage Services, threw its weight behind the cause and has done so ever since.
“You can’t put into words what it means to work with people who truly care,” said Patty. “We are so grateful for all the support.”
Over the last nine years, the Kristen Bartneck Memorial Golf Tournament has raised more than $50,000 and aided the Kempsville Rescue Squad, CHKD, and, for a second year, CHKD cancer patient Allison Burr, who is 9. This year’s tournament took place Sept. 14 at Honey Bee Golf Course.
“I love these tournaments,” said Nicole. “We can remember Kristen with happiness and help others.”
Patty noted that the fundraiser is an apt memorial for Kristen.
“We found some Halloween candy in one of her drawers that she apparently had been selling with her little friend Bryce,” said Patty. “Kristen was funny, fearless – she’d go off the high dive at 3-1/2 years old – and, turns out, our little entrepreneur.”
Irene Bowers,bowersi@aol.com
