Exclusive: Oleschuk Family Thanks Community, Nation

Sunday, March 20, the first day of spring and, for Connecticut residents who don’t live in Orange, the most beautiful day of the year so far, with temperatures in the 70s.

Joe Oleschuk, a 25-year volunteer firefighter, had just gotten a few hours sleep after responding to an accident call around 10 p.m. the night before. He was getting ready for church when his phone rang and he heard his younger brother, Roman, a lieutenant in the Orange Fire Department, say, “Isabella’s gone, please come help.”

Joe rushed to his brother’s side and learned that his 13-year-old niece was missing. He called his sister Helen O'Mara in Maryland to let her know, grabbed a recent photograph of the girl and brought it to his friend, CERT member, Annie Davis’s home.

Davis gave a shout-out to Fire Marshal Tim Smith to let him know that the child is “one of our own” [in the firefighting brotherhood]. Within hours, after the tracking dogs had completed their searches, Orange CERT was activated and joined the fire and departments in the search.

In the meantime, Helen, who was in bed when Joe called, grabbed the phone to call her younger sister Vlaja Telfer, a realtor in Florida, to break the news.

“I was a zombie for the first day and the second day I emailed her picture to everyone in my address list,” Vlaja said. She networked through the National Real Estate Board, and the Central Florida Pug Rescue group of which she is a member. “Kidfindersnetwork.org caught wind of the incident and printed up fliers for me to distribute,” she said.

While search parties were scouring the woods on Route 34, Joe was stopping at stores and restaurants along the Boston Post Road and Racebrook Road area, showing photographs to business owners and asking them to look out for his missing niece.

“At one point, I was 'right there' at , just a block away from where she was,” he said.

The rock of the family was their mother Joanna, who never lost faith and stood by her belief that everything would be fine.

“She was here with me on Saturday, helping pick up branches,” she said of her granddaughter. “I secretly slipped $20 in her back pocket for the work she’d done when she left she gave me a big hug.”

While Helen already had come up north from her home in Maryland, Vlaja waited a little longer. On Wednesday morning, armed with hundreds of fliers that her workplace had generously allowed her to print, she boarded a plane from Florida to New England.

She passed out the fliers at every airport and on each plane along the way.

“I was on the last leg of my flight, when I got an overwhelming feeling in the pit of my stomach,” Vlaja said. “It was 10:30 a.m.  The feeling hit again around 10:45 a.m. and I just knew, I knew something wonderful just happened.”

Isabella, who had taken up refuge in an old farm stand, was spotted by a passing motorist who stopped and called police. Isabella crawled out of the old and walked up to a waiting police officer within that time frame.

Controversial Column

The three siblings sat down with Patch on Sunday trying to find a way to express their gratitude to the untold hundreds of people who helped in the search for Isabella.

“She’s an incredible child,” Vlaja said. “We are so lucky we didn’t lose her. I think she’s going to grow up and do something amazing.”

“The woman, Kathleen Schurman, who wrote the was wonderful. It’s the most moving story I have ever read about bullying,” Helen said. “My sister Ola [in Georgia] read it to me, and then my son … it was very helpful to us. It is a concern of ours. People are afraid to talk.”

“The column touched you. They weren’t just words, we were touched by those words,” Joe said.

“We see this as a blessing; our second chance to help her, to help other kids. We know there are other kids who don’t have a voice,” Vlaja added. “It was very frustrating to have the school superintendent put out a statement that stopped the conversation.”

The sisters, who both graduated from Amity, said that it seems "the subject" is taboo and everyone is afraid to talk because they don’t want to suffer the repercussions.

“We want to be advocates for these children, because they don’t have a way of getting help,” Helen said, with tears filling her eyes. “Tell Kathleen we appreciate what she did, because it helped us deal with it.”

Thank You

“We want to express our thanks for all these folks who brought this wonderful child back to us, because if this life was lost … Just look at how much she affected our lives,” Joe said. “She’s involved in 4-H, and won best in show for her pumpkin squash hybrid at the fair, she’s active in the church. She’s already a big part of this community.”

“We cannot begin to express our sincerest thanks to everyone who gave up their lives to help our family,” the siblings said. “This incident brought the whole community together. There are stories of things that people did that we weren’t even aware of and we want to be able to say thank you.”

Although they can’t begin to try to identify every individual by name, the siblings all agreed that Police Chief Robert Gagne was always strong, helpful, professional and compassionate throughout the ordeal.

Joe added that the Orange volunteer firefighters put in eight hours at their paid jobs and then came to the command post every night and spent several hours searching until dark, while Roman’s co workers at Allingtown Fire district assisted the local firemen with support from West Shore and Center fire districts.

Vlaja mentioned the volume of firefighters and asked why so many departments from surrounding towns were involved.

“It’s a brotherhood,” she was told. “A firefighter’s child was missing, so that meant someone in ‘the family’ needed help and they were there.”

Fire chiefs Peter Massaro from Allingtown and Chuck Gagel of Orange were both instrumental in coordinating the massive search efforts each day. 

Helen said that every day, hundreds of people gathered at the police department and different businesses and individuals would simply show up with food for them.

“They fed our family, too,” Vlaja added. “There was always food. They kept us going.”

The list of volunteers and well-wishers is so extensive that the family doesn’t know how to begin showing their appreciation.

Small white note cards with a special message printed inside will be sent out to police, FBI and numerous fire departments. But for the masses of volunteers and citizens on a stand-by list who wanted to help, the family offers this note:

“There are not enough words to express the heartfelt appreciation we have for the outpouring of love that everyone showed our family. Even as critical hours turned to days, no one ever gave up on Isabella.

We thank the media, as well, for without the continued coverage and getting her face out there day after day and raising awareness of possible hiding places, she may not have been seen that morning.

A debt of gratitude, to Linda, for taking the time to turn around and stop when you passed by the farm stand — Thank you for bringing our Isabella back to us.

We thank God and Isabella’s guardian angel who stood by her and kept her safe.

Our hearts are filled with gratitude for everything, every search, every kind gesture, every message of encouragement and hope that we received.

Like Chief Gagne said, ‘It takes a village …’

Thank you, thank you, thank you all.”

— The Oleschuk Family