Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1920 — NINE PERISH IN FIRE [ARTICLE]

NINE PERISH IN FIRE

Mi But One Member of Two Families Die in New York Blaze. I Nearly Hundred Men, Wqrnen and Children Rescued From Five-Story Apartment Building. New York, Nov. 22.—Nine persons, constituting ever)' member but one of two entire families, lost their lives here enrly In the morning In a fire which destroyed a flve-story apartment house at 807 West One Hundred and Forty-sixth street. Fourteen other families escaped or were rescued by firemen. _ Originating, fire authorities say, in a baby carriage on the first floor of the brick structure, the fire swept upward through open stairways, cutting off escape through the halls. Nearly a hundred men, women and children, clad in night clothes, swarmed to the fire escapes, some making their way to the ground, while others hudtiied. terror stricken on platforms in midair until carried to safety. All the dead were found on the fifth and top floor, after the Are had been controlled. They were: Raphael Gebbia, his wife, Anna, and their four children, Carmela. Frank Lena and Jenny, who ranged In years from 7 down to 1%; Mrs. Ada Frank, Mrs. Bertha Reynolds, her sister, and Ruth Reynolds, a girl of 16. Charles Frank, overcome by smoke, fainted over a window sill and was dragged to safety and revived by a man who reached out from an adjoining building and drew him across the narrow open space. Mrs. Dora Schofield, living on the second floor, escaped with minor injuries. Robert Walker, a neighborhood resident, climbed a fire escape before the arrival of firemen and carried to safety an infant which had been abandoned in Its crib by a family living on the second floor. Other residents of the doomed building escaped over adjoining roofs. The cause of the fire was' not learned.