Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1918 — ABSENCE FROM HOME SAVES HASCALL’S LIFE [ARTICLE]

ABSENCE FROM HOME SAVES HASCALL’S LIFE

■ Remington Press. I Bib “Sip” Hascpll says old Lightning called on him but he was not at home Thursday evening during the terrific thunder storm that visited this section. Lightning struck the big tree in front of his residence in town and played merry havoc with things in general around the house. After stripping the big tree from top to bottom jn several places, it jumped to the ridge of the roof of the house, tore in through a bedroom, struck an iron bed and then made its exist at the northeast corner of the room. Its path could be traced along the wall paper across the south side, a part of the west side, until it came to the bed where it ducked the width of the bed, then up again to the ceiling of the room, across the north side to where it made a hole getting out. In the hall up stairs it also broke two good sized holes in the plaster, shattering the plaster over the opposite room. It knocked an electric rosette off the room below, and a number of brick out of the main chimney. The bed was the one usually occupied by the Hascall’s when at home, and had they been in the bed, would most surely have been killed. How the house getting on fire is a mystery.