MOUNT CARMEL -- Fifteen months have passed since Mount Carmel was rocked to its core by the unthinkable.

Jane Sims

This week, 23-year-old Jesse Imeson of Amherstburg pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life for murdering Bill and Helene Regier in July 2007 after breaking into their home on the Bronson Line, just up the road from Mount Carmel in South Huron.

The Regier family has kept a united silence, shielding themselves from the media's glare until the end of the case.

They have agreed to talk with The Free Press -- the time is right, they say, to share their story with those who have offered their prayers and concern.

Son Doug and his wife Diane renovated and moved their family into the red-brick Regier home.

"Within days, everyone in my family thought they had been there forever. It wasn't an adjustment at all," Doug says. "The walls still have an outpouring of love."

"It's the homestead farm," says son David. "We know so much love. Nobody can take that away."

Some may wonder how the Regiers' six kids, their spouses, their 16 grandchildren and five great-grandkids would ever want to return to a place many associate with tragedy.

But Dan, 52, Dave, 51, Doug, 50, Derek, 48, Carol, 47 and Dale, 41, don't want people to think of the farm as the place where their parents died.

They want everyone to know it's where they lived.

When the family is together, it's not crippled by grief, but filled with love.

Memories flood from them. Each step they take is with their parents on their minds.

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The Regiers were all about "faith, family and friends," their children say.

They found joy in watching the magnificent sunsets from their front porch and seeing their family thrive.

They were wise, but never preached.

"If you have a problem, you make the difference," they would tell their kids. If a crisis hits, they would gently tell them "this too shall pass."

They balanced demands of the farm with their dedication to the church and community, the boys' hockey and football, Carol's dance and music.

In their 70s, they felt blessed to be parents, overjoyed to be grandparents. But they worried about the next generation -- about a lack of respect for parents, teachers, public property and each other. They feared discipline and hard work were no longer valued.

"They felt it was quickly diminishing," Carol says. "I think they felt we were going to suffer the repercussions."

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They met when they were 13 on a bus trip to Midland. Helene was from Zurich, Bill from Mount Carmel. A few years later they were dating. On Oct. 1, 1955, they married.

It began a warm, loving, rich life, reaping the harvest of hard work and strong values. They began on a smaller farm to the east, where they dug the post holes for their electricity and Bill brought home drinking water in milk cans for his family.

They later moved to the family farm where the whole crew was involved with the farm -- a tradition carried on by Doug and Dale.

When they had cows, there was milking to be done twice a day, 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Even start times for wedding dinners had to be adjusted so the chores could be done.

"The only time you didn't have to do it was if you were the groom," Derek says.

In later years, the operation turned to chickens. And Bill and Helene gently moved into semi-retirement.

But it didn't change the foundations of their happiness. As they got older, their days seemed to be busier for "gramma and grampa" determined not to miss any of their grandchildren's functions.

Helene would organize the calendar and would sometimes overbook it.

"We'll never be able to do it," Bill would say.

"Yes, we can," Helene would tell him.

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Above everything else, the church remained a constant.

They could see the steeple from their sunroom.

"The family that prays together, stays together," Bill would tell his kids.

They were fixtures at mass. They said grace at breakfast, lunch and supper.

They quietly expected their children to maintain their faith tradition.

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Bill and Helene's murders on July 22, 2007, could have torn their kids apart. But, they say, it's made them stronger.

The only girl in the family, Carol was often the target of teasing by her older brothers.

"My mom used to say to me 'Someday when you grow up, you're all going to be great friends and you're going to love each other a lot.' "

That day came a long time ago, she says, but the love has intensified. They still gather as a family and add a few more get-togethers in between the expected holidays.

It's the lessons their parents taught them that have pulled them along.

"We think 'What would they do?' " Carol says.

They have maintained faith in God and a belief their parents are with them each step.

"It's been bred in us," Derek says. "You look back and say, 'I guess that's what got us through.' You don't realize it."

And it's why they can return to the homestead and bathe in the love that has been left for them to share.

"It's not by any means a struggle," Carol says. "That's where faith and strength is a stronger force than evil.

"They've been with us all along. We might be going through the motions, but it's pure guidance from them."

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HELENE REGIER

Helene Regier's children say she was an original scrapbooker, before there was scrapbooking.

She made elaborate baby books. The house was full of photographs and candy jars for the little ones.

Helene was a constant in the Catholic Women's League and a respected diocesan president for two years.

There wasn't a garage sale or a shopping trip she didn't like. While she would browse through the stores in Exeter and Goderich, Bill would find a quiet bench to sit on, often sparking friendly conversations with strangers.

They both planned family events, preparing food for two or three days. "Come early and stay late," Helene would tell her children.

There was space at the long tables for everyone, complete with a name tag written out by Helene. If a grandchild brought a friend, she would quickly disappear and make one for the newcomer to make them feel welcome.

And the tables would groan with food. Routinely, Helene would discover something in the refrigerator later she forgot to serve.

The grandchildren thought it was miraculous. Even if you said you weren't hungry, a plate of food would appear. Milkshakes, pies, pineapple squares and fruit cocktail -- all made in her kitchen.

And if Bill and Helene were the guests in their children's homes, there would always be a handwritten thank-you card in the mail the next day.

She and Bill loved having the grandchildren -- nine boys and seven girls -- come stay. One bedroom they called the red room was filled with games and toys. The blue room was exclusively for the girls and contained jewelry, perfume, creams, lipsticks, scarves and pins.

Helene would play games with the kids and encourage them to perform plays and dress up, often playing the piano to go along with their stories.

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BILL REGIER

Bill Regier never wanted to stay away from home much.

Thirty years of milking cows set off an internal alarm clock that begged him back to his Bronson Line farm if he was away on a day trip.

He was most happy sitting in the sunroom, watching the local traffic and the farm equipment going by.

If not there, he might be in his truck or the cab of his big John Deere tractor, with the heater on and the radio set to a country station. Or at his Knights of Columbus meetings.

The family misses the "Billisms" -- old sayings he always quoted about rainbows and wind and crows at the top of the tree.

"Fish belly sky, never long wet, never long dry," he would say.

The custodian at Mount Carmel school had a knack for remembering phone numbers and his grandkids' birthdates. He called the younger members by nicknames or purposely mispronounced them. He loved to take them for tractor and truck rides to look at the crops and point out the neighbours, or out to the barn to see the chickens and sheep.

On weekends, he would cook up a big farm breakfast -- Red River cereal, pancakes and eggs -- expecting his grandchildren to bounce out of bed ready for the day when their uncles came in from chores.

"Let them sleep in," Helene would gently tell him.

That went against what he told his children.

"Early to bed, early to rise," he would say.

Jane Sims is a Free Press justice reporter.

E-MAIL: Jane Sims