Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1908 — TELLS OF THE FIRST ALARM [ARTICLE]

TELLS OF THE FIRST ALARM

Janitor Herter Lose* a Daughter— Harrowing Scene* Described. Janitor Herter could remember little of what happened after the fire started. “I was sweeping in the basement,” he said, “when I looked up and saw a wisp of smoke curling out from beneath the front stairway. I ran to the firealarm and pulled the gong that sounded throughout the building. Then I ran first to the front and then to the rear doors. I cannot remember what happened next, except that I saw the flames shooting all about and the little children runningdown through them screaming. Some fell at the rear entrance and others stumbled over them. I saw my little Helen among them. I tried to pull her out, but the flames drove me back. I had to leave my little child to die.” Herter was badly burned about the head. Miss Catherine Weiler, one of the nine teachers in the school, lost her life in a vain effort to marshal the pupils of her class and lead them to safety. She died in the crush at the rear door. Mrs. Clark Sprung’s little boy Alvon, aged seven, was a pupil In the second grade. When the fire started the mother ran over to the ■school and arrived when the first floor was a mass of flames. At a window on that floor she saw the face of her boy. He recognized her and pleaded for help. Rushing across the street Mrs. Sprung secured a stepladder and placed it against the window. Climbing up she reached for her boy. She caught him by the hair. It burned off in her hands and the lad fell back into the flames. The suburb of Oollinwood contains about 8,000 people, and within half an hour after the outbreak of the fire nearly every one of them was gathered around the blazing ruins of the schoolbouse, hundreds of parents fighting frantically with the policemen and firemen to reach their little ones. Wallace Upton reached the building shortly after the front door had caved In. Just in front of Upton’s eyes was his own ten-year-old daughter, helpless to the crush, badly burned and trampled upon, but still alive. He made a frantic, but vain, attempt to save her, and is himself so badly burned that be may die. The firemen dashed into the blazing wreckage, and with rakes, forks, shovels and their bare hands, worked to tiie most frantic manner with the hope of saving a few mor* lives. They were unsuccessful. Fragments of incinerated limbs, skulls and bones were found almost at every turn, and these things were piled together to a little heap at one side of the building. Besides the children who were killed Inside the building three little girls— Mary Ridgeway, Anna Roth and Gertrude Davis—were instantly killed by leaping from the attic to the ground. Deputy Coroner Harry MeNottl said: “I have many portions of bodies and dozens of hands and feet which have been torn off and burned away, but which cannot possibly be Identified. There are four well developed ftmaJs bodies among the dead. Two of them may be older girls, bnt ths other two are certainly women."