The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-07-06

the father-alive with a great fear
rushed madly back into the burning
house and attempted to make his way
up the stairs. He found it impossi-
BILE. the stairs were completely in
flames: the house was already blaz-
ing all over the inside wood work.
The smoke rolled through the halls
and rooms in dense and choking
clouds. Blinded. suffocated, his hair
singed and his flesh cracking with the
heat Mr. Cole regained the air, rush
ed around the home and in the deS-
peration of his agony and fear tried
vainly to reach his children's rooms
nv the sashee ne windows on the
south side house. While he
was SWingin che air on blind
and smashing\o { window panes with
his bare hand in the effort to break
into the room above, the flames were
cracking fercely in the room in
Which the children slept, leaping from
the lower windows and licking the
weather boarding above and around
him. AT this moment, kind neighbors
who had gathered seized the thor
oughly crazed man and wrenched him
from his hold. AS he fell back to
the ground, his arm caught either
pane of glass and was severely cut.
At this juncture the gasping crowd
below suddenly saw a small figure at
the window Of the upper room. 1T
was the boy Gowan. He stood there
for a moment framed in flame and
smoke, his hair and eye broWsA crisp
ing with the heat.
.Jumn, cried the throng in terror,
and Gowan, hesitating for moment,
rat from
dow. Although uninjured by the fall
of fourteen feet, it was found that his
arm was terribly burned and that his
hair had been singed from his head.
Boys Tale Of Death.
Gowan SAYS that when he walked
ND the room was full of smoke. He
leaped from his bed and with his lit
tie six-year-o sister. Flossie, ran to
and opened the door intending to go
down stairs When the door was
opened, however. the flames shot in
and Scorched him, the room filled IN
stantly with a smoke so thick that he
could not see. and it was only by
blind chance that he managed TO gam
the window of his room. The little
girl whom he had started to rescue,
he lost and necessarily left to her
death.
Fate OF Little Girls.
Soon after Gowan'S escape the en-
tire house sprang into flame inside
and out. and it was matter OF COM
paratively short time before, both
floors and the roof had fallen in, re-
moving for once and all any faint
hone that may have still fingered IN
the hearts of the stricken parents OF
saving the three girls.
While the fire, in the absence OF
water. slowly burned itself out, Mr..
and Mrs. Cole and the boy GoWan'
sat or a nearby porch and gazed duly
at the faring flames. The father was
almost mad with a grief that burst
out in spasmodic torrents; the mother
touched with an even greater sorrow,
was stunned, hurt in the deeps of her
being. wounded so that she could not
Weer, SO that there came Wrenched
from her soul only the inarticulate,
the almost whispered utterance of
pain that it was not for tear to tell
Finding the Bodies.
After the fire had spent itself, the
search for the bodies was at once be-
gun. That of the little girl, Flossie.
was found suspended in some frag-
ments of sills between the upper and
the lower floors; those of the two
older girls. Minnie and Myrtle, were
discovered lying side by side on the
springs of the bed in which they slept
"a circumstance that makes possible
the belief that they died the easier
death OF suffocation before the flames
reached their bodies. All the bodies
were horribly charred and were al
most unrecognizab le-Were il a state
of such mutilation as is too horrid to
describe.
The bodies were taken to the house
of i neigh Dor, Mr.. G. w. Edwards,
where they were kept until the fun
eral yesterday afternoon.
Funeral Services.
The funeral services were held yes
terdav afternoon at five O'Clock at the
Caraleigh Mission Church, by the
Rev. F. A. Bishop, of Central Church,
of this city, of which Mr.. and Mrs.
Cole are communicates. The remains
of the three children were placed In
one coffin and the buriakwas made at
the City Gene terry in Raleigh.
Plight of the Coles.
When a reporter visited the burned
house yesterday, he found Mr.. and
Mrs Cole and their son, Gowan. at
the home of Mr.. ]. T. Cole. Sr. where
they have been cared for since the
fire. Mr.. Cole, strong, well made
man of determined cast of features,
was still nervous and shaking from
the shock His hand tremb,ed and
his voice broke as he spoke of the
tragedy OF the early morning. His
wife was still stunned dazed. She
hn1 hn n of ia