Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1899-02-07
LINES LOST IN A FIRE.
Boarding-H House Burned at Spring
field-Three Persons Dead and
Others Badly Injured.
.HERoIsM DISPLAYED BY The INMATES.
Blaze Was Started by n Can of Coal
OIL and Flames Mad Such Rapid
Progress That All Were Not Able
to Make Their Escape-Dnring Res
cueA.

Springfield, Ill, Feb. 6.-The board
ing-house conducted by Mrs. M. Whitney
at Seventh and Cook streets was de-
stroyed by fire at five o'clock in the
morning and three persons were burned
to death. Several others were injured.
DEAD-Mrs. Matte Whitney. aged Il.
Miss Helen Rose, aged 50.
James c.. Hall, aged so.
SERIOUSLY BURNED Miss Mary
Hall, %.
INJURED-Ralph Whitley and May
Whitney, aged IA and 10 years, respectively.
Building Was ONE
It was shortly after five o'clock when
a neighbor saw flames in the dining
room and turned in an alarm. When
the department arrived the entire
building, constructed of brick, three
stories high, and containing 16 rooms,
WA doomed. With the mercury be-
low zero the iremen had great trouble
in keeping the flames inside the four
walls and saving adjoining property.
An explosion of coal oil used to help
start the kitchen fire is said to have
been the cause of the blaze.
There were 12 boarders in the house,
five members of the Whitney family and
two servants. Mr.. Hall, a retired mer-
chant, occupied a room on the second
floor. He was confined to his room
from old age and ill-health and was
attended by his daughter, Miss Mary
Hall.
BOdy Burned to q Crisp.
When the fire broke out it is sup
posed Miss Hall, endeavoring to reach
her father, was overcome by smoke and
fell in the hallway, where she was found
by fremen and carried to the open air.
Her clothing and flesh was burned al
most to a crisp and other injuries re-
ceived, from which she will die.
Mrs. Whitney made her escape from
the building and, finding her children
all out, she returned to rescue Mr.. Hall.
She never came out Of the burning
building. Firemen found her charred
body in Halls room four hours after the
fire was extinguished.
r Work Of a Girl.
May Whitney, aged 10, was awakened
by the suffocating smoke. She aroused
her three brothers, Clarence, aged 6;
Willie, aged 10, and Ralph, aged IA.
The latter jumped from the second
story window, badly injuring himself.
May caught Clarence in her arms and
dragging Willie by the waist the little
heroine started down the stairway,
which was ablaze from top to bottom.
just az she reached the last step 1t fell
with a crash, but the children were
saved.
Miss Helen Rose, sister of Mrs. John
McCreery, Of this city, proprietor of
the st. Nicholas hotel, was sufocated
by smoke and died from heart failure.
Mollie Ridgeway, the servant, says she
called Miss Rose to make her escape and
was answered with the reply; Cali
right"
Dies at the Door.
The servant believed she left her room
Immediately, as she had reached the
front door and just started out
OF the house, when she fell dead. She
had been subject to heart trouble for
years.
Mollie Ridgeway, the servant, says
she had been called by the porter. When
she entered the dining-room she saw
flames coming from the basement and
saw that the house was doomed. She
ran through the house and awakened
all the inmates. She saw that the chill
dren and Mrs. Whitney were out of the
building and then tainted.
MAN. Narrow Escapes.
Mr.. and Mrs. "A. K. Stacey, board
ers, had a narrow escape, barely reach
Ing the open air when their room fell
through to the ground. The other
boarders escaped with barely their lives,
not an ounce of clothing or personal
effects being saved by anyone.
The loss to the building and contents