Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1920 — BAD FIRE IN WALKER TOWNSHIP [ARTICLE]

BAD FIRE IN WALKER TOWNSHIP

Gail Michal, the Kniman merchant, was in Rensselaer Monday and reported that Walker township had a very bad fire Sunday. The house on -the Thomas Walter farm, ocupied by Mr. Walter’s son, James and family, was burned to the ground about noon. A telephone message was sent to Kniman and Mr. Michals and eight other men hurried to the scene of the fire which was four miles east and a half north of Kniman. When tbey arrived they found Mrs. Walter and the children in the barn and the-youngest child, a baby, was very cold tend one of its fingers was frozen. The house was a large two story frame building with six or eight rooms. It was completely destroyed by the fire and but for the quick help from neighbors but little of the household goods would have been saved, and the’ mother and two children would have suffered severely from the intense cold, the thermometer being near zero. About half of the contents of the building were carried out of the building and away from the fire. Neighbors threw open their homes and Mrs. Walter and children were hurried in out X)f the bleak winter blast.