Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1908 — SCHOOL CHILDREN PERISH IN FLAMES [ARTICLE]

SCHOOL CHILDREN PERISH IN FLAMES

Terrible Holocaust In Burning School Building in Suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Another terrible fire tragedy has occurred and as a result 165 children were burned to death, choked to death with smoke or lost their lives by being trampled under foot at a school house at North Collinwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Wednesday morning of this week. The victims of the fire were between the ages of 6 and 15 years. The school had an attendance of about 325 pupils, and only about 86 are known to have left the building unhurt. The school house was of 'brick, two stories with an attic. There was only one fire escape, and there were two stairways, one to the front and one to the rear of the building, and the doors to the stairways opened inwards. When the alarm of fire was given the pupils were formed into a fire drill and marched down the stairways. The children became panic stricken* on the stairway and rushing for the doors fell against them and pinned themselves in and then struggled against each other ih their efforts to reach the doors. The back door was found to be locked and the fast spreading flames soon wrought a horrible death to the little ones. One of the teachers, Miss Catherine Weiler, lost her life in an effort to rescue the children at the rear door.

The work of rescue was a most pitiful one, with terror-stricken parents wildly rushing about trying to locate their children, and in some instances being able to see their own children being consumed by the flames and being unable to In any manner aid them. The fire had destroyed the building in aboht three hours and the work of untangling the mangled and charred bodies occupied’ almost all the remainder of the day. The sad picture can not be word painted.