Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
Speaker 1: the show where America is the star and the American people.
Speaker 1: Up next, we have a story from a young man
Speaker 1: named Caleb Bailey. Caleb is from California and recently moved
Speaker 1: to Asheville, North Carolina for work. Here he is sharing
Speaker 1: his family's story, beginning with his dad, who, from a
Speaker 1: very young age, wanted to be a firefighter.
Speaker 2: My dad wanted to be a firefighter so bad when
Speaker 2: he was a kid that he set his backyard on
Speaker 2: fire just so the fire department would show up. He
Speaker 2: was so excited to see them. And you know, my
Speaker 2: poor grandma was just like, I don't know how to
Speaker 2: explain this to you. And then it's funny. You fast
Speaker 2: forward or some years later and he is a firefighter.
Speaker 2: He had a heart for serving others in that capacity.
Speaker 2: But when I was born, ten days after I was born,
Speaker 2: my dad, Joseph Dupe, was killed in the line of
Speaker 2: duty as a Los Angeles City firefighter. He was a
Speaker 2: captain and had been on the job for a while
Speaker 2: at that point. He was responding to a structure fire
Speaker 2: early in the morning. It was a pet food factory
Speaker 2: and as him and his crew were fighting it. They
Speaker 2: decided to exit the building because the structure was kind
Speaker 2: of collapsing, and so he got a signal from one
Speaker 2: of the emergency devices there that they use if any
Speaker 2: of them are lost or trapped or anything, and they'll
Speaker 2: set off that signal and the rest of the crew
Speaker 2: will go and find them and help them out. And
Speaker 2: one of his crew members dropped his and that's what
Speaker 2: set it off. So actually no one was really in danger,
Speaker 2: but they didn't know. So he went back in to
Speaker 2: find that member, and so while he was in, he
Speaker 2: walked into a room where the roof collapsed and knocked
Speaker 2: his face mask off, so he was, you know, inhaling
Speaker 2: all the smoke and toxins and stuff, and then an
Speaker 2: oven in the building actually exploded and blew out and
Speaker 2: knocked him out at that point. So his crew members
Speaker 2: were close behind and came and found him and you know,
Speaker 2: dragged him out, but by the time they tried to
Speaker 2: do CPR and rushed him to the hospital, he was
Speaker 2: already gone at that point. So my mom received the
Speaker 2: news that morning. Mike Killiger, who is the chaplain, was
Speaker 2: the one who told my mom about my dad. She's
Speaker 2: told me a few times about what was going through
Speaker 2: her mind when she got that news. Obviously a billion things.
Speaker 2: You've lost your breadwinner of the family, you don't have
Speaker 2: any finances, you've lost the father of your two sons,
Speaker 2: and possibly most important of all, she lost her soulmate.
Speaker 2: This is her husband and she married for years and
Speaker 2: was just gone. And now they had to figure out life.
Speaker 2: And that's a dark place to be. It's a place
Speaker 2: where most people would give up, especially realizing that these
Speaker 2: two little boys of yours have a lifetime of hurt
Speaker 2: and hardship ahead of them because of this. So they
Speaker 2: went to the hospital and many people from her church
Speaker 2: were there. Many people from the fire department and surrounding
Speaker 2: stations as well were nearby and supporting her. It was
Speaker 2: the first fatality on duty that the La City Fire
Speaker 2: Department had seen in a long time, years, maybe decades,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure the actual number. So it not only
Speaker 2: shook those of us who were close to my dad,
Speaker 2: but just everyone in the department. It was a really
Speaker 2: dark time for La City. And so yeah, that's where
Speaker 2: we stood in February or March of nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: a family barely getting started as a family and now
Speaker 2: they're just ripped apart. It's a pretty hopeless situation when
Speaker 2: you look at it anyway that you cut it. It's
Speaker 2: just tragic. It's sad. You hear stories like this all
Speaker 2: the time about people, and different people deal with those
Speaker 2: things differently. My mom could have given up and felt
Speaker 2: no hope, which I'm sure she did at many points,
Speaker 2: but she didn't give up. She resolved to raise her
Speaker 2: two sons to love on them, regardless of what the
Speaker 2: next ten twenty thirty years brought and whether or not
Speaker 2: her husband was there alongside her. So yeah, all of that, Like,
Speaker 2: like I've said, you can read about all of that online.
Speaker 2: All those reports are on La City firefighter websites and
Speaker 2: the incident reports, and you know the background on my dad.
Speaker 2: But a lot happened after that, and you won't read
Speaker 2: about those online, but they're the biggest parts of the story.
Speaker 2: So the first one is my uncle Robert Dupee, who
Speaker 2: was Joe's brother. He was similar to Joe in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways. They're both just always up to no
Speaker 2: good and pulling pranks and doing rowdy things. But in
Speaker 2: terms of his faith and his morals, you couldn't have
Speaker 2: been more different. He hated everything about the Church and
Speaker 2: the Bible and Christianity. No matter how much his brother
Speaker 2: presented it to him and pleaded with him about it,
Speaker 2: he wanted nothing to do with it. And my dad
Speaker 2: would pray at night. My mom told me, Lord, please say, Robert, like,
Speaker 2: whatever it takes, even if it means taking my own life,
Speaker 2: would you save him. And we kind of laugh a
Speaker 2: little bit at that, sometimes say careful what you pray for.
Speaker 2: But they got the news of my dad dying, and
Speaker 2: my uncle was driving to the hospital and he remembers
Speaker 2: just parking his car, turning the car off and looking
Speaker 2: up and just saying, all right, you have my attention.
Speaker 2: And as soon as he walked in that building, he
Speaker 2: saw something that you don't see in these situations very often,
Speaker 2: and it was the love of the church, the love
Speaker 2: of family, the love of the fire department, all surrounding
Speaker 2: my mom and overwhelmed him, you know. And it was
Speaker 2: something that stood out and was different than what he'd
Speaker 2: experienced in his life. And so he spent the next
Speaker 2: few months asking questions and wanting to know what it
Speaker 2: was that Joe believed. You know, what was this faith?
Speaker 2: He asked one of Joe's friends from church. Will I
Speaker 2: ever see my brother again? Like I want to see
Speaker 2: him again, you know? A few months later, he accepted
Speaker 2: Christ and started attending church regularly and wanted to not
Speaker 2: only live on his brother's legacy, but more importantly, to
Speaker 2: know this savior that his brother did.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Caleb Bailey tell the story of
Speaker 1: his father, his mother, and his father's brother and how
Speaker 1: he and his family dealt with a great loss, of
Speaker 1: great tragedy. When we come back, more of this remarkable
Speaker 1: story about faith, love, and so much more here on
Speaker 1: Our American Stories. Leehabib here, and I'd like to encourage
Speaker 1: you to subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get our podcasts.
Speaker 1: Any story you missed or want to hear again can
Speaker 1: be found there daily again. Please subscribe to the Our
Speaker 1: American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or
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Speaker 1: great American stories coming. And we returned to our American
Speaker 1: Stories and we've been listening to Caleb Bailey share his
Speaker 1: family story. Caleb's birth dad died when he was just
Speaker 1: ten days old in the line of duty as an
Speaker 1: LA firefighter. Through this tragedy, Caleb's uncle, Robert came to Christ,
Speaker 1: but Caleb's mother was left a young widow and Caleb
Speaker 1: and his older brother Luke were left fatherless. Back to
Speaker 1: Caleb for the rest of the story.
Speaker 2: So then life goes on for our family, just two
Speaker 2: boys and a mom trying to make it by. And
Speaker 2: one of my mom's friends had a mutual friend named
Speaker 2: Kevin Bailey, who was also a firefighter. The fact that
Speaker 2: she thought my mom would want to marry another firefighter
Speaker 2: is crazy, but it worked, and introduced the two of
Speaker 2: them at a Super Bowl party and they hit it off.
Speaker 2: And that was Kevin Bailey. And I could talk your
Speaker 2: ear off about Kevin Bailey. He had been working for
Speaker 2: a while and was single, living in southern California, and
Speaker 2: he was looking to get married and was blown away
Speaker 2: by my mom's story. In fact, before he had met
Speaker 2: my mom at that Super Bowl party, he had heard
Speaker 2: her speak at a firefighter event regarding my dad's death,
Speaker 2: and he was blown away. He was just like, because
Speaker 2: she spent that whole time just giving the gospel. You know.
Speaker 2: Here she was in front of hundreds of people in
Speaker 2: La City, and she was just given the gospel and
Speaker 2: he was like, WHOA, that's different. Apparently the two little
Speaker 2: rascals she was dragging along her side didn't scare him off,
Speaker 2: so he went on some dates with her. It speaks
Speaker 2: a lot to his character that during that time, before
Speaker 2: they were even married, he would be me over for dinner,
Speaker 2: He would be watching us. If my mom had some
Speaker 2: event you need to go to, you would babysit us.
Speaker 2: When I had pneumonia and I was in the hospital
Speaker 2: at a year old, he was there supporting my mom,
Speaker 2: taking care of me, and hanging out with my older
Speaker 2: brother Luke. Obviously my dad was interested by based on
Speaker 2: the fact that he stuck around my mom and me
Speaker 2: and Luke, and so as he was dating her, he
Speaker 2: kind of went to our pastor at our church and said, hey, look,
Speaker 2: I don't know what the next step would be or
Speaker 2: how soon that step would be, but I think I
Speaker 2: want to marry this woman. And my pastor just looked
Speaker 2: at him and said, hey, you either fish or cut bait.
Speaker 2: She's got two sons, and those sons need a dad,
Speaker 2: and she needs a husband at this point, so you
Speaker 2: better make a decision, and so I guess my dad
Speaker 2: went with the fish instead of cutting bait and married
Speaker 2: my mom in nineteen ninety nine in July, and adopted
Speaker 2: me and Luke, so he was now my mom's husband
Speaker 2: and our dad. And people ask me sometimes, you know,
Speaker 2: was there ever any weird points in her upbringing, just
Speaker 2: kind of like dealing with your stepdad and trying to
Speaker 2: navigate that and kind of the power dynamics or the
Speaker 2: parenting models and all those things, and I just tell
Speaker 2: them he wasn't my stepdad, like legally he was my
Speaker 2: legal dad, and it wasn't just a legal obligation either.
Speaker 2: The way he raised us made it really easy to
Speaker 2: be his son because he was a great father. They
Speaker 2: had two more sons, my younger brother's Brock and Rylan,
Speaker 2: so we had four boys in our house and it
Speaker 2: was chaos all the time. But nothing really surprised my
Speaker 2: mom at that point, after all she'd been through. So
Speaker 2: my dad retired from the fire department in twenty ten
Speaker 2: or twenty twelve, I can't remember. I'm pretty sure it's ten.
Speaker 2: A man on his crew, Glenn Allen, actually died that
Speaker 2: year responding to a fire as a roof collapsed on
Speaker 2: a building, and my mom just said, Hey, that's enough.
Speaker 2: You know, I can't be going to bed every night
Speaker 2: with you at the station and knowing that that could
Speaker 2: be you, you know, and go through all this all
Speaker 2: over again. So he retired after thirty years on the department.
Speaker 2: They've been present and very active in our lives. So
Speaker 2: six months back, I moved from California to Asheville, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: So Uncle Robert, he's one of the few family members
Speaker 2: of Joe that we've been in close contact with. He
Speaker 2: made quite an effort after everything happened to still be
Speaker 2: around to support my mom, to love on me and
Speaker 2: my older brother, to spend time with us. And I
Speaker 2: actually visited him this past summer on my way down
Speaker 2: to North Carolina. They live in Nashville, Tennessee, and so
Speaker 2: I spent time about five hours that first night. They're
Speaker 2: just kind of hearing stories about my dad, hearing kind
Speaker 2: of what went down on site of the incident, which
Speaker 2: was kind of a huge moment because I hadn't heard
Speaker 2: those things for a long time, and not for bad reason.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just had never asked my mom, you
Speaker 2: don't really want to bring up those things unnecessarily. If
Speaker 2: I were her, I wouldn't really want to revisit that
Speaker 2: situation a ton, So I wanted to be considered in
Speaker 2: that sense. And it wasn't of the utmost importance that
Speaker 2: I knew about some of those things. But my uncle
Speaker 2: didn't mind talking about it, so we talked through some
Speaker 2: of those things, and then he told me he had
Speaker 2: the actual original tape of the funeral. There were a
Speaker 2: couple funerals, actually, the La City Fire Department did one,
Speaker 2: and then Grace's Community Church held another. One of the
Speaker 2: most impactful things about that video was watching my mom. Naturally,
Speaker 2: my eyes were just kind of directed towards her and
Speaker 2: just kind of seeing how she dealt with it. My
Speaker 2: mom is so sweet and so emotional too, in both
Speaker 2: the highs and the lows, so she gets the most
Speaker 2: excited about our achievements and our com puishments, but she
Speaker 2: cries very easily too, So I was just expecting her
Speaker 2: to be in a pool of tears during this video,
Speaker 2: and I kid you not, the whole time I watched it,
Speaker 2: she wasn't crying once. She had her two sons with
Speaker 2: her and she had to be strong for them. Obviously,
Speaker 2: she wasn't pretending like nothing happened. Deep down, her heart
Speaker 2: was being ripped out. There's a whole range of emotions
Speaker 2: from overwhelming support of all these people being here for
Speaker 2: the service, and then the reality of her husband being dead,
Speaker 2: and yet she stood there and welcomed all the hugs,
Speaker 2: welcomed all the love and the condolences from people around.
Speaker 2: There's one little clip where they cut in and it's
Speaker 2: close and she's holding my older brother Luke, who's two
Speaker 2: at that time, and she's pointing out things on the
Speaker 2: fire truck like, hey, that's kind of cool. You see
Speaker 2: that all you see the big fire truck, And it's
Speaker 2: just like here she is facing the biggest moment of
Speaker 2: her life, the biggest tragedy of her life, right in
Speaker 2: the face, and she's raising her son at the same
Speaker 2: time and knows that that's going to be the next
Speaker 2: you know, rest of her life is doing that regardless
Speaker 2: of what happens. And she was strong in that, and
Speaker 2: she's continued to be strong even if she's emotional. She
Speaker 2: doesn't crack. You know, she has been joyful all throughout
Speaker 2: our upbringing, even when a lot of it wasn't joyful.
Speaker 2: So yeah, even talking to her. I talked to her
Speaker 2: today because yesterday was the anniversary, twenty four year anniversary,
Speaker 2: so I was talking to her today and I told
Speaker 2: her people always ask me how I process through that situation,
Speaker 2: like how can I pray for you? What's difficult about it?
Speaker 2: And that's understandable. But the reality is there's not much
Speaker 2: grief in it. You know, obviously in that time and
Speaker 2: at the moment there was, I was too young to
Speaker 2: really experience that. The only emotion that I feel is
Speaker 2: just being overwhelmed seeing the Lord's kindness and providing through
Speaker 2: all of that. And she said that's exactly how she feels,
Speaker 2: which says a lot because she was the one that,
Speaker 2: you know, bore the brunt of what happened, and yet today,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty four years later, she's saying, Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: not sad, it's only like incredible what's happened. There's so
Speaker 2: much redemption in the midst of all of it. Like,
Speaker 2: if I were to plan that out from a third
Speaker 2: person perspective, I'd be like, they have a happy life
Speaker 2: as a family, nothing bad happens to them. Okay, that's cool,
Speaker 2: that's great. That would be a good situation and then
Speaker 2: the Lord says, no, I'm going to take the husband
Speaker 2: out of the picture. And you're going, what in the world,
Speaker 2: that's not only a bad idea, that's the worst possible idea,
Speaker 2: Like that's complete opposite. What are you thinking? And then
Speaker 2: he goes, but through that, I'm going to save his brother.
Speaker 2: And then through that, I'm going to provide another dad
Speaker 2: for this family. They're going to get more people to
Speaker 2: their family, and those that whole family will know me
Speaker 2: as a result and praise me. And then they're gonna
Speaker 2: tell this story to hundreds of thousands of people in
Speaker 2: the future, and those people know the story. Now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: your whole thing with the family being happy and complete
Speaker 2: and everything that's special, but this is something different. He
Speaker 2: can redeem those things that are broken way better than
Speaker 2: we could ever picture it.
Speaker 1: And a terrific job, a beautiful job on the production
Speaker 1: by Faith and a special thanks to Caleb Bailey for
Speaker 1: sharing his story and my goodness, his mother comes off
Speaker 1: as one heck of a star. He lost a breadwinner,
Speaker 1: lost the father of two sons, lost her soulmate, and
Speaker 1: had to figure out life. He said he could have
Speaker 1: given up, but she didn't. Caleb Bailey's story, his family story.
Speaker 1: Here on our American story.