By Michael E. Young, The Dallas Morning News

Oct. 23--POETRY -- When the three Langlois boys packed their duffels and headed off to join the Army two summers ago, they always assumed the family home would be there when they returned.

Kyle, the last of the brothers to leave for basic training, called Poetry "a nice quiet little town out in the middle of nowhere" when The Dallas Morning News wrote about the triple enlistments in 2007.

But it was home, and the Langlois boys loved it. It was a time of pride for the family as the brothers set off for foreign lands.

Their parents, Filomena and Don Langlois, thought the only thing they had to worry about were Kyle and his brothers, Ryan and Lucas, serving in a war zone.

But job loss and disabilities have pushed the Langloises to the brink of foreclosure on their home in Poetry, an unincorporated enclave in rural Hunt County.

The family property -- a log house on 22 acres assessed by the county for almost $399,000 -- has been the Langloises' home for the past 10 years.

"We bought the land in the '90s and sat on it, clearing it, waiting to build," Filomena Langlois said. "We lived in an apartment for five years, paying off the land. And the value went up so much that I could borrow the money to build the house just on the value of the land."

She worked in North Texas' booming telecom business back then, and her husband was a sheet-metal fabricator.

But he also had heart trouble and suffered from cluster headaches, described by one researcher as "probably the worst pain that humans experience." He eventually found it impossible to work.

With only his wife employed, the family fell behind on their mortgage.

Eventually, with her husband's disability checks, the Langloises finally caught up on their house payments. Then, a few months later, Filomena Langlois lost her job.

When the telecom boom went bust, and thousands of jobs disappeared, she turned to defense contractors, which paid well but not always for long.

"I worked for companies like Raytheon, Bell Helicopter -- but when the contracts end, the jobs do, too," she said.

Living for months on disability checks, with jobs almost impossible to find, the Langloises were among the thousands of Texans unable to make their mortgage payments or pay property taxes.

Filomena Langlois found another job in Tyler, a 90-mile commute each way, but it brought in a steady paycheck.

The Langloises thought they had found another glimmer of hope when they heard about the federal mortgage-modification program, only to find that they didn't qualify.

They wrote to officials in Austin and Washington, pleading for help. None replied, Filomena Langlois said.

Meanwhile, the lien holder on their property pushed forward with plans to foreclose. The Langloises would lose their home and more than $100,000 in equity, she said.

This week, the family received a loan-modification proposal, essentially a 27-year mortgage that covers the delinquencies to their current mortgage and property taxes paid on their behalf.

But the interest rate would be 8.75 percent, Filomena Langlois said, and the monthly payments would be $100 more than the current mortgage.

"I just can't agree to higher payments," she said.

So the Langloises scramble for other options. They talk about filing for bankruptcy, which could halt the foreclosure.

Their youngest son, Ryan, who is serving in Afghanistan, has offered to buy the house from his parents, "but I hate to burden him with our problems," his mother said.

Lucas recently returned from a year in Korea and is now serving in Maryland. Kyle, who was injured during training, left the Army with a medical discharge.

Filomena and Don Langlois have little time to save their home. Next week, a motion to foreclose could go the courts.

Filomena Langlois tries to be philosophical.

"No matter what happens with the house, it's just a financial hardship, and we will get over it somehow, someday," she said.

"The main thing I have to keep telling myself when I think about things on my three-hour commute to and from work is that home is where your heart is.

"It can be any house."

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