DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) - The Primm family was supposed to reopen its snowball stand this week, but a wrench was thrown into its plans.

Customers will have to wait because the family's garage caught on fire. The family saved what it could, but what was lost in the fire hits close.

Aniyah Primm and her family members had a small plastic bag of baby and wedding pictures. That is all they could recover for the time being. Now it is a reminder of what happened earlier this month.

"It's just something you would think would never happen to you," Primm said.

She and her family were asleep when the fire started. They woke up as soon as they heard loud pops from outside. Primm described it as five back-to-back pops. Suddenly, a neighbor was banging on their door.

"Somebody at our door saying 'get to the front of the house, your car is about to explode,'" she said. 

The fire was so massive the house started to melt. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

The garage was more than a place to store baby & wedding pictures. Primm said it was an archive of the family's small businesses.

The co-owner of the snowball stand said every small family business started in the garage. The includes the Snowball Effect on West Pershing. It is a New Orleans style snow cone shop.

"It was a lot of history in that garage," Primm added.

To the family, the garage was a Smithsonian Museum of Black-owned memorabilia in Decatur. The garage stored stacks of TrubuNews newspapers and pictures of Primm's grandmother, who was the owner of the Original Wild Daisy. Plus, there were photo's of Primm's mother when she owned a beauty salon.

A few essentials items from the Snowball Effect were lost in the fire, too.

"My grandma passed away two years ago, so we just lost a whole bunch of memories with her," Primm sighed.

To the young business owner, seeing all the damages stung, because she and her family don't know how the fire started. However, that is not going to stop them from making new memories and keeping their current business open.

Despite the family's losses, Primm said customers should expect the Snowball Effect to re-open for business soon.