Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1916 — Students Have Narrow Escape From Burning Fraternity House. [ARTICLE]

Students Have Narrow Escape From Burning Fraternity House.

Clad only in their night clothes, nineteen students of Purdue university were compelled to flee for their lives early Tuesday morning when fire was discovered in their house. The building destroyed was the chapter house of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. The fire started from an overheated furnace and had gained great headway before discovered. Nineteen members of the fraternity were sleeping on the third floor and but for the timely work of R. M. Greater, of Ft. Wayne, would probably have perished. Mr. Greater is troubled with asthma and when the fumes from the fire and smoke penetrated the third floor he was awakened. He made an investigation an<* finding the lower floors a mass of flames, awakened his comrades. % The men started to go down the stairs but ‘were driven back by the smoke and flames and were compelled to flee for their lives down a narrow iron stairway at the back of the building. r i ’ in