DeAnna Kellar-Zawacki in 1991 survived an Interstate 80 crash in Mercer County that killed her parents and three sisters. Labeled a miracle, the then 7-year-old from Sharon became the “poor little Kellar girl.” An orphan. Over the years, she struggled with people feeling sorry for her, alcohol and drug addiction, toxic relationships, insomnia and run-ins with the law. At age 14, she was living on her own.
“Nearly every day of life has been a struggle,” DeAnna said. “I try to make the best of it. I try to seize the day, but I’m kind of use to life being difficult.”
Today, at 40, she has found her way. Drug- and alcohol-free for nine years, DeAnna works with adults who have special needs and continues to receive counseling. She and her husband John Zawacki, 48, live in Sharon, where they take in and care for children.
“I have a lot of chosen children,” she said. “I basically collect anything that needs love. It took a long time to be OK, but I’m OK.”
33 years ago
At 2:10 a.m. on July 5, DeAnna’s father, Benjamin Kellar, 28, was driving his family home from a Fourth of July get-together at his brother Dennis’ home in Clarion. Benjamin missed the Sharon exit, attempted to turn around at an I-80 emergency crossover in Shenango Township and drove into the path of a tractor-trailer, police reported.
The impact pushed the family’s 1983 Monte Carlo into a concrete abutment. It then rolled back, landing on its roof a few feet from the Ohio line.
Killed that night were Benjamin Kellar; his wife, Rita, 26; and their daughters, Amy Leigh, 8, and Dana Melissa, 2. Daughter Angela Lynn, 4, died the following day at Allegheny General Hospital.
DeAnna remains haunted by the crash. Awake at the time, she was in the back seat with Amy and Angela; both died after their seatbelts broke their necks. DeAnna was not wearing a seatbelt.
“That’s why I’m alive today,” she said. “I flew forward and broke my jaw on the headrest. I remember my father saving me from going through the windshield. I remember him grabbing me and almost tossing me back into the seat.”
Put into a chemically-induced coma and hospitalized for nine days, DeAnna returned to Sharon to find her parents and siblings buried at Oakwood Cemetery. The family home was packed in boxes. Her grandmother, the late Paulette Lawler, told DeAnna about the loss of her family.
“My grandmother said ‘God took them home,’” she said. “I wanted to go home, too. I was a miracle and didn’t want to be the miracle God wanted me to be.”
DeAnna grew up in the Sharon homes of her grandparents, the late Edward and Paulette Lawler, and Esther Kellar and the late Carl Kellar.
DeAnna has spent most of her life with people feeling sorry for her. It’s something she struggled with. She said she felt like her presence was a constant reminder of the tragedy.
“I felt like I had to live up to so many expectations,” she said. “I hated that. I lost my identity. I was no longer DeAnna.”
“I was afraid for people to see me laughing and having a good time because people would think I wasn’t remembering them.”
A dark road
At age 12, DeAnna had her first alcoholic drink at her aunt’s wedding.
“They thought it would be cute to give me champagne for the toast,” she said. “Little did they know I was drinking all night.”
“I remember not feeling,” DeAnna said about the effects of the alcohol. “I didn’t feel anything. For the longest time, I was so accustomed (to feeling pain).”
She started running away from home. At age 14, DeAnna got jobs delivering newspapers and then bussing tables. She would “couch surf.”
DeAnna also found cocaine at 14.
“It made the liquor work a lot quicker,” she said.
At age 17, DeAnna received an insurance settlement from the crash.
“The second I got the money, I spent it as quick as I could,” she said. “I hated that money. I went down a very dark road for a very long time.”
DeAnna got an apartment and bought a tattoo shop. She quickly learned she was not a good business owner.
“I was high all the time. It was crazy,” DeAnna said. “I would send my tattoo artist to get me alcohol.”
She was arrested for stealing her grandmother’s bank card, spent time in the Mercer County Jail and released to rehabilitation and a halfway house. Trouble followed due to probation violations.
“It took me five years to work off 11 months’ probation,” she said. “I couldn’t stay sober and they always caught me.”
Growing up with her cousin
While raising DeAnna, the Lawler grandparents also cared for DeAnna’s cousin, Todd Bacon. Todd’s mother Vicki Bacon, who was Rita Kellar’s sister and the Lawlers’ daughter, died from an aneurysm when Todd was 18 months old.
“We were extremely close because of my mother passing,” Todd said about DeAnna. “My father had to work and my grandparents stepped in to help raise me.”
Todd, 42, of Sharon said DeAnna has had a very difficult life.
“She was surrounded by love from both sides of the family,” he said. “That set off that she was special. I think that’s what brought on the addictive personality by no fault of her own.”
Todd says DeAnna is a survivor.
“She survived the car accident and heavy addiction that took most of her annuity settlement,” he said. “She still has a positive outlook on life and she’s totally clean. She’s taking care of other people’s kids.”
Todd, now a district manager for Long John Silvers, believes that being a foster parent is DeAnna’s calling.
“I think she’s very good at it. She’s the type of person who would give you her last $10,” he said.
He said their grandparents did the best they could even after Edward Lawler lost his job at Sharon Steel in 1992.
“My grandparents weren’t well off,” he said. “They were very poor, but DeAnna and I never went without anything. What they lacked in means they compensated in love.”
Family
Born on Sept. 12, 1983, in Killeen, Texas, DeAnna was the second oldest of the Kellars’ daughters. Her father was stationed at Fort Hood with the Army at the time of her birth and later worked as a carpenter.
DeAnna said she shared a close relationship with her sisters and her parents.
“I was a daddy’s girl,” she said. “My father didn’t have a son, so I became a tomboy. I loved helping my dad.”
Her mom was “always about being in the kitchen,” where she and DeAnna spent time together. They also would watch the TV soap opera “Days of our Lives.”
DeAnna shared a birthday with her oldest sister; the girls were one year apart.
“We still celebrate our birthdays together,” she said. “I go to the cemetery and light a cupcake.”
Bacon said the four sisters were “daddy’s girls.”
“Aunt Rita was always in the kitchen,” he said. “It was a very loving, active household with hustle and bustle from early morning to late at night.”
Psychic medium
DeAnna claims she’s a psychic medium — someone who has extrasensory capabilities and can tap into things unseen or unknown by usual sense of perception. She believes it came from the trauma she experienced from the crash.
“It was kind of a gift that was given to me, to get me through,” she said. “I’ve got to watch gray come into my father’s hair and wrinkles on my mother face and watch my sisters grow.”
DeAnna met her husband through mutual Facebook friends. They went on a blind date, but she wasn’t looking for a relationship. They’ve been together for eight years and married for two years.
“He’s a mixture of my grandfathers and father,” she said. “Even if we have a little argument or disagreement, he has a kind and passionate heart like I do.”
Defending her dad
DeAnna has defended her father for years.
“There were rumors that my father was drunk (on the night of the crash). That was false,” she said. “There were rumors that my parents were arguing in the car. That was false.”
For years, she said she associated the sound of fireworks with sounds of the jaws of life used to free the family from the wreckage.
That’s over now.
“On the Fourth of July, I would be sedated for a majority of the time,” she said. “I worked through all that and can enjoy fireworks now.”
