In 2004, Ohio resident and World War II vet John Potter became very ill so he and his wife signed their power of attorney over to their daughter, Janice Cottrill. What they didn’t know is that at some point, Janice signed the deed to her parents’ home over to herself, and earlier this year, she filed an eviction notice to her own father. To make this story even worse, John built the home in question himself when he returned from WWII as a young man, with nothing more than a power shovel that he borrowed.
Fortunately, when he learned of his daughter’s BS back in 2010, John signed his power of attorney over to his granddaughter, Jaclyn Fraley, and as grandpa faces a June 12 eviction hearing, Jaclyn called upon the kind hearts of the Internet for a little help with raising the $125,000 that John would need to keep the house, and as of today they had raised more than $138,000 with a GoFundMe account.
“So many people who don’t have grandparents anymore have adopted him from so far away,” Fraley said. “A lot of people have said, ‘I love you and you’re my grandpa’.”
Fraley said she is shocked and grateful by the 5,136 people who donated to the campaign in one month, including a large number of U.S. veterans.
“I kept refreshing the page,” Fraley said of her GoFundMe fundraising website once the ABC News story was published. “Everyone I knew was refreshing.” (Via ABC)
Some people have kept donating on top of the original amount, citing the fact that John will need additional money to pay for taxes and utilities and such. My favorite part of the story, though, is John’s description of why he built the house 56-years ago.
“When I got out of the army and got on my feet on the ground, I rented a power shovel and dug a hole in the ground, built a basement and built a house on top of it,” Potter said.
When asked how much the home could be worth, Potter said he did not know.
“I didn’t build it to see how much I could make it worth. I built it to live in,” he said.
John turns 92 on Thursday and I’ll be glad to throw a couple bucks toward the first keg.