Donors Save Elderly Tennessee Woman from Eviction

(STRAWBERRY PLAINS, Tenn.) -- Mary Cate Jones has spent the past few weeks packing up her life's memories. It was a little more than a month ago that she learned she was facing eviction from the home in Strawberry Plains, Tenn., that she and her late husband built in 1956.

But after her plight was featured in the local paper last month, donations began pouring in.

The generosity of so many, strangers and neighbors alike, makes her tear up.

"They were just so good. They helped me so much," Jones told ABC News, her voice breaking.

Jones, 78, had never had a mortgage on the house until 2007 when she took out a $60,000 loan to help pay for major home repairs. She fell behind on payments when she says her mortgage was sold a number of times and she wasn't clear on where she was supposed to be sending payments.

According to Jones, it was a notice in the paper that the deed to her home had been sold when she first learned about it. Jones discovered the house was in foreclosure and that eviction proceedings were being planned. And that it would cost $72,000 to save her home.

She contacted the Knoxville News Sentinel newspaper, which then ran an article about her situation, and that article caught the eye of Rev. William Shiell, pastor of First Baptist Church of Knoxville, where the family attends church.

The church then set up a fund for the family and the information was shared by the local news media. Over the next several weeks, Shiell says more than 500 individuals sent in donations totaling nearly $57,000. An anonymous donor then stepped forward to make up the difference of $15,000.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio