NASHUA – To anyone who has called Nashua home for any time, the fact that Nashua Fire Rescue’s controlled burn of a home at 959 W. Hollis St. earlier this month drew widespread interest came as little sur­prise.

The house, a three-decade-old split-level that sat on about a third of an acre at the corner of West Hollis Street and Elmhurst Lane, carried one of the more unusual tales in the history of Nashua housing, welfare, legal and political circles.

The tale includes years of debate about how to help the home’s residents, re­sulting in an unprecedented plan in which the city set up a trust created by "a coali­tion of local banks" and ad­ministered by a private law­yer – funded by the family’s assets and income – which built the house that was just burned down.

The property has been occupied by members of the Emmons family since the early 1970s, when, ac­cording to the Hillsborough County Registry of Deeds, Maurice and Theresa Em­mons purchased the land and the original house, tak­ing out a $14,200 mortgage with the former First Fed­eral Savings and Loan As­sociation.

Thus began the family’s 43-year connection to the property, which ended on June 24, when Jensens Inc., the Southington, Conn., firm that owns the neigh­boring River Pines mobile home park, purchased it for $72,500, according to city records. A week later, Nashua’s firefighters were engaged in hands-on train­ing in the empty building, eventually burning it to the ground – not an unusual way for firefighters to get training.

It’s not clear what pre­cipitated the sale, nor which family members, if any, were still living there when it was sold, but the news produced many questions about the history of the property.

A series of Telegraph interviews with several longtime Nashuans with knowledge of the family’s residential history, includ­ing former aldermen, City Hall employees and law­yers, provided a clearer picture of what appears to be an unprecedented pub­lic-private initiative tasked with finding a solution to a most unusual city Welfare Department case.

The Emmons family lived in Nashua for a num­ber of years before the 1972 purchase of the West Hollis Street house, but just how long isn’t clear. Theresa Emmons, who died in Janu­ary 2013 at age 85, was born in Greenfield, according to her obituary. Her husband, Maurice Emmons Sr., died in 1993.

The couple had 15 chil­dren, 12 boys and three girls. Theresa Emmons was predeceased by two sons; at the time of her death, most of her surviving 13 children lived in Nashua, while oth­ers lived in Tilton, Belmont, Manchester and Peterbor­ough. She was also survived by some 30 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren, according to the obituary.

Early on, the growing family reportedly lived in the area of today’s Walnut Street Oval, around the time that the 1960s federal urban renewal program was tearing down old tene­ment buildings in the area.

Some historians say the family lived for a time in the Bronstein apartments, which were built on land cleared by urban renewal. As that generation grew older, they began moving into their own apartments, mostly in the Tree Streets and French Hill areas.

But starting in 1972, the West Hollis Street house was by all accounts the cen­ter of family activity. Those interviewed recall several family members’ frequent presence in the downtown area, where they often waved or said "hi" to pass­ersby.

They befriended police, especially officers on the downtown walking beat, and, according to those in­terviewed, rarely acted out­side the law, although fam­ily members do show up occasionally in Telegraph stories related to crime dur­ing that period.

Come the 1980s, Maurice and Theresa Emmons’ home had fallen into disrepair, ac­cording to sources. City of­ficials, prompted by public health concerns, looked into the matter and came to the conclusion that the house needed to be razed.

It was leveled in Novem­ber 1984, after which sev­eral camping trailers were placed on the property.

What followed was a cau­tious foray into uncharted waters by a wide variety of city officials, from the Welfare Department to the Legal Department and the mayor’s office to the Alder­manic chamber, all sources agreed.

"We talked about a lot of things," said one former city official, who asked not to be named.

Another official recalled that the city may have had a lien on the property, which may be why some suggest­ed the city consider fore­closing on it, but that would have left a large, extended family with no place to live.

From a legal standpoint, the official said, a city is generally regarded as the "last resort" for the care of its poor. That standard has modified somewhat over the past 30 or so years with the introduction of new state and federal programs and, perhaps most notably, the creation and expansion of various social services.

Perhaps the most vocif­erous debate on the issue rose in 1984, sparked by a Welfare Department pro­posal that the city guaran­tee a mortgage to finance the construction of a new house at the 959 West Hol­lis site. A Telegraph story in December 1984 called the plan "unprecedented," not­ing that the aldermanic Fi­nance Committee discussed the matter in nonpublic ses­sion.

Its proponents, one of whom was among those in­terviewed this week, said building the family a home would actually save the city money in the long run by eliminating the need for welfare officials to continu­ously put up family mem­bers local hotels, motels and other shelters.

"The idea behind the house was it would be less expensive … We wouldn’t need to keep finding them shelter for a week here, a few days there," he said.

But aldermen were mum on the subject, according to the Telegraph, and three weeks later reported that city leadership had put the plan "on the back burner" while they researched the possible ramifications of such a move. It apparently lay dormant for several weeks – but a breakthrough was on the horizon.

It came in the form of a modified plan that called for the city to set up a trust for the family, to be admin­istered by a private lawyer, and into which family mem­bers’ assets, and income such as their benefits or wages for those who were able to work, would be di­rected. The trust, formed with the assistance of "a coalition of local banks," according to the Telegraph, would pay for housing and other living expenses for the family – including the construction of a new house and its mortgage.

"When I became in­volved, the house had just been built," said one source, who served as the trust’s administrator for about 18 months. "We made sure the bills were paid and every­thing was taken care of."

Because a city depart­ment was involved, the Board of Aldermen still needed to sign off on the plan. It did so on Feb. 26, 1985, passing the motion with only two dissenters, who "claimed the family doesn’t deserve assistance because its members re­fuse to maintain basic stan­dards of cleanliness," the Telegraph reported.

While the plan wasn’t per­fect, one source said, it was in retrospect an example of out-of-the-box thinking backed by the best of inten­tions.

"Today, we know that the best practice when hous­ing (homeless or disabled) people is to have the neces­sary supports in place, for as long as they are needed," the former trust adminis­trator said.