The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1884-03-07

A Family OF Five Persons Lose Theiu
Lives.
New YORK, Feb. 29.- Five persons in
one family lost their lives in tenement
house fire on Stanton street yesterday morn.
ing. The family of Cornelius Van Ripper
occupied two front rooms on the third floor
of $50 Stanton street, one of two frame ten
ements densely crowded with poor families,
Frank Weaver, single man living in tie
rear rooms was aroused by smoke about foul
o'clock yesterday morning. He rushed out
into the hallway and there found
Van Ripper and asked him what was tbs
matter. MY God my GodI the house is
afreF' exclaimed Van Ripper. land 1 must
save my wife and children" Saying this,
he ran into the front apartment, while the
flames burst out in the hallway, only giving
Weaver time to tumble downstairs. Van
Ripper was never again seen alive. Mean.
time the flames had burst through the roof
OF S26 and were licking at S24-
A. great crowd assembled in Stanton
street, and when the cry was raised that
people were still in 326 many heroic efforts
v.
bug in vain. The flames and smoke defed
entrance to the building by that means, and
the fre-ladderS had not yet arrived. Sud-
denly the window IF the Van Ripper apart
ments was raised, and heartrending shr. eks
came from it. For moment the crowd
could see nothing Then a gust of wind
cleared away the smoke from the window,
and the form of woman, clothed in her
niuht-dreSS 'Sfood like UhOSt
''Save my husband, save my ohildren%
she screamed. For Gods sake save my
babieSp
The crowd in the street moaned and sent
back cries of despair. ''My children are
burning upP the woman shrieked, evil
IDENTIFY undetermined as to whether she
should go back to her children or jump
from the window. Another cloud of smoke
obscured her for an instant and all was still.
In another instant she gave a despairing
shrek and jumped from the window. land
ing on the sidewalk on her head and Shoul-
derS. The crowd ran to her and picked
her up. She gave two or three weak means
and died just as the police ambulance
dashed up. She was within week of con-
fnement.
By this time the entire upper part of 326
was in flames, and the fire department was
hard at work. just at daybreak the fire
Was eXtinguished, and the firemen and po-
lice forced their way to. the rooms of the
Van Ripers. The family had evidently
been half suffocated before they were
aroused to find escape from an
awful death cut off. The bodies
were all found in different places,
showing that the unfortunates
rushed wildly and blindly around the rooms
in their efforts to escape. In the rear room
was found the girl Jennie, with her night
clothes burned off. Her arms and hands
were terribly burned. Her hands were held
to her face when the body was found, show
ing that she had made an effort to keep the
flames from her eyes and mouth.
The skin from the hands and arms of the
boy Albert hung-in shreds, and his left arm
| was raised across his face. He was found
doubled up in corner, and one side of his
body was badly burned.
The little child frankie, charred and
blackened, was found near his fathers
body in the front room.
The face and head of Van Ripper were
horribly burned and the features were
scarcely recognizable.
The remains of the family were gathered
in blankets and conveyed by ambulance
wagons to the station house, where they
were laid out in row. They were: Cor
nelius Van Ripper, aged forty; Rebecca Van
Ripper, aged thirty-two; jennie Van Ripper,
aged ten; Albert Van Ripper aged seven;
frankie Van Ripper, aged two.
Laterin the day the bodies were removed
to the home of Mrs Van Riper's brothers,
Charles and Edwin Carpenter, from whence
they will be buried on Sunday There were
sixteen other people in 1926 and eighteen
| people in 1874, all of whom escaped UNI
harmed, but lost their outfits of clothing
and household goods. Frank Weaver
says that after he left Van Ripper
he returned and pounded at the door, but
it was locked, and his shouts gained no
response. The houses 1924 ard 326 Stanton
were three-story frame dwellings, old,
rickety, and dilapidated, and hardly fit fol-
human habitation, having no means Of
escape from fire save two tumble down
| stairWays. Cornelius Van Ripper was a
baker, and an intelligent man, and his fam
lily was much respected by their neifghbors
At one time they were comfortably we'll off,
but business reverses made the husband
and father poor, and landed his family in
the miserable ire-trap that became their
crematorY.