BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – The start of this new year marks the start of a new chapter for Earcy Tucker. He’s retiring from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department after a decade of service, but he will still have a part of his old job with him at home, because it’s a home the sheriff’s office literally helped build for him after he spent years living in a tornado-damaged ruin.
Tucker’s story began in 2013 when bulldozers knocked down his old house almost three years after a tornado damaged it so badly no one thought anyone was still living there. Sheriff’s Lieutenant Rucker Sumerlin discovered Tucker was living in the damaged structure with no running water or power.
“When I got inside, I saw it was filled with mold and mildew and there were holes in the floor, and from the water damage, where the rain was coming in from the roof,” Sumerlin said.
From disaster to new beginning
Tucker received some help from FEMA, but it wasn’t enough given the extensive damage.
“I didn’t make a big fuss about it, decided to leave it in God’s hands, toughed it out. Did that for about 2 years,” Tucker said.
Sumerlin and fellow sheriff’s deputies, along with the Methodist Church, worked together to build Tucker a new home.
“I always said I knew God would take care of me,” Tucker said.
The connection didn’t end there. Months after moving into his new house, the sheriff’s office reached out in 2014 to offer Tucker a job at the jail, where he started as a cook.
“And that was around late June of 2014. And they started me off as a cook in the kitchen, which, you know, I didn’t mind it because personally, I like cooking. So, that was my job,” Tucker said.
A decade of service
Tucker eventually moved up to work on laundry and the cleaning crew where he spent the last 10 years until this week.
“I had been talking about it throughout the years. I said, well, one day I’ll be able to retire and I can move on and do some things like I decided to do. And before you know it, that day was here,” Tucker said. “I just hope that throughout these years, that I’ve just given y’all the service that I was put here to do.”
Tucker said he enjoyed his time at the sheriff’s office and the relationships he built.
“I enjoyed the fact that I got a chance to meet people who I became friends with and got to know them,” he said. “I enjoyed my time here. But I’m closing this chapter now. And I’m going to open a new one.”
Writing his story
Tucker has been working on a memoir and hopes to finish it within the next year.
“I’m hoping that if I can get it published and people read it, I hope it would be an inspiration to folks who may have went through a similar situation like myself,” he said. “I hope that it would be inspiring enough to just let them know, you know, regardless to what your situation is, you have to continue to be a fighter. You just can’t give up.”
Tucker said he tried to pass on that attitude to the inmates he met during his time at the jail.
“I tried to say encouraging things to them,” he said. “I said, well, you can do it. I said, as long as you put your mind to it and you determine to do whatever it is you want to do. I said, it may take some time, but it can be done.”
Tucker views his time at the jail as preparation for his next chapter.
“I look at that as my stepping stone to moving on to doing some bigger and better thing, because working in that jail taught me that, you know, regardless to who you are, you know, there’s no situation that bad that you can’t overcome,” he said.
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