Even when Christine Toal couldn’t afford to pay her bills, she always managed to find money for others.
“She always came with a smile and something for the grandchildren,” her daughter Brittney Toal said. “Her heart was in the right place.”
The 56-year-old mother of two struggled with inner demons during the last decade before her life ended unexpectedly in a house fire March 3, her children said.
Christine Toal, 56, (left), her late ex-husband Joseph Toal, and children Brittney (second from right) and Joseph Jr. in a family photo. Toal was killed March 3, 2026 in a fire at her Bensalem home.
The cause of the early morning fire in the 2700 block of Belleview Drive remains under investigation, Bensalem Fire Chief Mark Antozzeski said on March 4. J
Firefighters found Toal unconscious in the kitchen of the burning home. She died soon after she was rescued at the scene despite the efforts of medics. Her roommate, an elderly former coworker, survived.
The Bucks County Coroner’s Office is listing Toal’s manner and cause of death as pending investigation until toxicology results are available and the fire investigation is finished.
Her sudden death has left her son and daughter grappling with not only the loss of a parent and childhood home, but the responsibility for their mother’s crushing financial burden.
Toal got married when she was 19, and she had Brittney a year later. She never had the chance to learn how to take care of herself on her own, before she was responsible for taking care of others, her daughter said.
“She never really had a chance to grow up before she grew older,” Brittney said.
Her children called Toal a great mom who was always there for them when they needed her.
She took them to church every Sunday and made home cooked meals for dinner every night. Mom loved to dance around the house with them, singing along to B101 radio station, while she was cleaning.
Things got hard after she and their father, Joseph, divorced, Brittney said. Years later, though, the couple reconciled and started living together again in the family’s Belleview Drive home.
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Then tragedy struck. Joseph died suddenly at home on March 2, 2019. Toal never recovered from the loss, her children said.
In recent years, she worked handling takeout sales at the Fox Hunt Tavern in Bensalem, Brittney said. But she was not good with keeping up with her bills.
Toal let the homeowner insurance lapse leaving her children responsible for the loss. She didn’t have a life insurance policy. She was behind in her utility bills and property taxes, Brittney said.
In an effort to help the siblings, a friend has started a Go-Fund-Me campaign to raise money for funeral arrangements and essential home expenses and ease the “catastrophic” emotional and financial burden.. It has collected nearly $3,000 as of March 4.
“I’m sure there has been a time you have been at a Toal BBQ, had a beer handed over to you by Christine’s hands at the Fox, a helping hand or shared laugh from Joe Sr., a hang out, a joke, rode your bikes with Brittney or Joe in the 90s,” Croydon resident Marylynn Stack wrote in the post.
“It’s our turn to show them that they are not alone,” Stack added. “Even in this devastation their community is here.”
A look at a house in the 2700 block of Bellview Drive in Bensalem, where a woman died in an early-morning blaze Tuesday, March 3, 2026. A roommate escaped, but was hospitalized, a neighbor said.
Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at jciavaglia@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bensalem mom killed in fire. How to help those left behind