Aug 15, 2025
With help from the local community, Christine Marshall — an 81-year-old Memphis woman affectionately known as “Mama” — will soon have a brand new house that she can call home.
After a tree fell on her house and left it in ruins, Marshall has spent the last three years living in her car parked on the driveway, WREG News Channel 3 reports. Her tragic story, which won the hearts of many across the city, has united the local community and rallied together a team of contractors and specialists who want to help fix her living situation.
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Thanks to a GoFundMe created by her son, Antoine Hardin, more than $75,000 has been raised to help Marshall rebuild her home. The old home is set to be demolished while a new one will soon take its place, but thanks to the extreme generosity of the community, Marshall won’t have to spend a dime on her new house.
‘I gotta help this lady’
Marshall's story grabbed local headlines in July when her neighbor called WREG to shed light on the situation.
Marshall, who is non-verbal due to throat cancer, told reporters through a written note that her home of 30 years was left unlivable. Due to fears that her home would be burgled, Marshall ignored pleas from her son to stay with him and decided to live in her Hyundai sedan instead. Her concerned neighbors were quite angered by the situation.
“It’s hot out here, and her house is falling in,” Darron Rivers, who lives in the neighborhood, told NewsNation. “She’s sleeping in her car, ain’t nobody around here paying her no attention. You’ve got four churches over here that do what? Nothing!”
But ever since WREG shared Marshall’s story, Memphians have rallied to her rescue. The money raised in the GoFundMe was supposed to go towards rebuilding Marshall’s home until Jason Smith, a local contractor, stepped in. Smith, who works with Titan Drywall and Construction, knew he had to help after learning about Marshall’s situation on the news.
“That night I just couldn’t sleep, and I reached out to the news station and tried to get a little information about it,” Smith shared with WREG. “And finally, the next day you guys got me in touch with the son and I came out and met with Ms. Marshall and the son. And once I met her for the first time, dude, she melted my heart and I was like, ‘I gotta help this lady.’”
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Smith estimates it will cost around $150,000 to rebuild the house, but he doesn’t intend to charge Marshall one penny for the work. Instead, he turned to social media for donations, asking the community to help with supplies and labor, with specialists of all sorts answering the call.
“I met a guy who sent me a message saying, ‘Man, I’ve lost everything I had two years ago to a divorce. I can’t afford to donate the materials, but I can donate my time and my labor,’” Smith said. “None of the subs are making a dime, we all know going into this, this is 100% on us, everything is donations.”
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‘Thank you for your help. I love you all’
Hardin announced on the GoFundMe page that Smith and his team were obtaining the permit from the city of Memphis to build Marshall a new home.
“There are a lot of memories in that [old] home, but I had to get Mama to understand that she can make more memories while she’s still living than trying to retrieve old memories,” said Hardin.
In a heartwarming moment, WREG reporter Harrison Klopp showed the new house's blueprint and floor plan to Marshall, and her reaction was priceless.
“I want to see her happy; she’s been hanging in there,” said Hardin. “She got her smile back, yeah. She got her smile back. That’s all I wanted.”
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Smith hopes to have Marshall’s new house completed by Christmas. Until then, she’s finally accepted her son’s offer to stay with him. And even though throat cancer has taken her voice, Marshall knows how lucky she is to receive such support from the community.
“Thank you for your help. I love you all,” Marshall wrote on a piece of paper that she handed to a WREG reporter.
“It’s a blessing for the community to reach out like that,” said Hardin. “This shows a whole different part of Memphis. I thought people didn’t care,” he added.
As for the $75,000 raised in the GoFundMe, that money will go towards Marshall’s future — something that’s finally looking up after years of unimaginable hardship.
"I want to thank Channel 3 for this because it’s been a blessing, so we can get everything going and trying to get everything rebuilt and get this together," said Hardin.
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Cory Santos is a finance writer, editor and credit card expert with over seven years of experience in personal finance. Having lived and worked worldwide, Cory now calls South Florida home, helping consumers find their ideal credit card and offering impartial and approachable advice to help them navigate their best financial lives. Cory joined Wise Publishing from BestCards, with bylines in numerous digital publications across North America, including AOL, MSN, Yahoo Finance, the Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and more. When he isn't scouring for the latest credit card deals and offers, Cory can be found working on his various historical research projects, jogging, or hanging out with his cats, Bentley, Cougar, and Pumpkin.
