Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1886 — SMALL CHILDREN ROASTED. [ARTICLE]

SMALL CHILDREN ROASTED.

Four Little Ones Cremated in a Burning Building at Akron, Ohio. [Akron (Ohio) special.] For three years past the widow of Thomas Mooney has lived in a little frame cottage on the hillside one mile north of this city. A forty-acre plot of land gave Mrs. Mooney and her seven fatherless children a meager livelihood. Last evening the widow retired in an up-stairs room with her five children, the eldest twelve years of age and the youngest a babe in arms. In another room slept her grown-up children, Lizzie and Patrick, while in the attic was her brother-in-law, Lawrence Mooney, an old man of 60 years. About midnight Mrs. Mooney awoke and discovered her small bed-chamber filled with smoke. She rose hastily, seized her babe in her arms, and cried to the frightened children who were now’ awake: “Follow’ me; follow your mother.” She made an effort to escape by, the stairway, but the flames and smoke rushing up from below stifled her, and she returned and jumped from the window with the babe still clinging to her breast. In the meanwhile the fire, which had originated from a defective flue in the kitchen, enveloped the little building in flames. The two grown children and the aged man escaped w’ith difficulty. When they reached the open air the heartrending cries of the four little ones in the room above were heard, and the old man rushed into the burning dwelling to save them. The flames drove him back, but not until he was frightfully burned. The house was rapidly consumed, and the cries of the four children became fainter and fainter, and, at last, as the fire broke from every window, their cries ceased, and all was still. This morning all that remains-of the four children consists of a tub full of bones and masses of burned flesh. Lawrence Mooney, the old man who so heroically endeavored to save the children, lies at the point of death. His flesh hangs in shreds upon his body, while the blood is oozing from his finger-tips; his eyesight is gpne, and his gray beard is singed to a bright yellow. His sufferings are terrible. He cannot possibly recover. The scene about the ruins of the hillside cottage this morning beggars all description. The mother, whose four little ones were burned to a crisp, stands about the charred embers of the dwelling with a stolid look in her face. She has grown aged in a night. There is not a tear in her eye. Her grief goes beyond the perceptible emotions. She will neither converse nor receive the sympathy of her neighbors, and it is feared her reason has been destroved forever.