Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-03-05

behind pushed forward and as I stood
there the little ones piled up on one
another. Those who could, stretched
out their arms to me and cried for
me to help them. tried with all my
might to pull them out and stayed
there until the flames drove me
away"
One of the scenes of supreme hor-
ror that attended the fire occurred
at the rear doorway of the building
before the firemen arrived. This
door, like the one in front, opened
inward and it was locked. The
children were piled up high against jt
and when it was finally broken down
by their weight and because of the
fire that had partly burned and
weakened it., the women who Had
gathered on the outside, saw before
them mass of white faces and strug-
ling bodies. The flames swept over
the aisle while the women stood
helpless, unable to lift a<hand to aid
the children.
Many of the women were unable 20
Withstand the sight and dropped
fainting to the ground.
The fire department was late in
reaching the building and when it
came the apparatus was inadequate
and the men were volunteers, there
being no paid department in the SUI
burb. The water pressure was not
sufficiently strong to send stream
to the second story windows. More
over the firemen had no ladder that
would reach to the third floor. The
volunteers did what they could but
within a few minutes after their ar
rival the task was one for ambulences
! alone.
The flames spread with such terri
fic rapidity that within thirty min.
utes from the time the fire was dis.
covered the school house was moth
ing but blackened walls surrounding
a cellar filled with corpses and de.
bris.
The fremen dashed into the blaz,
ing wreckage, and with rakes, forks.
shoyels and their bare hands, worked
in the most frantic manner with the
hope of saving few more lives. They
were unsuccessful, for none were tax.
en- alive from the ruins after the
floors collapsed.
Fragments of incinerated limbs
skulls and bones were found almost
at every turn, and these things were
piled together in little heap at one
side Of the building.
| A great majority of the little bod
les that were taken from the ruins
were burned beyond all possible rec
ignition And it is no small part OF
the sorrow which is bearing down the
n people of North Colhnwood that posi-
tive Identification of many of the child
rem will never be made.
4 Besides the children who were kill
ed inside the building, three little
| girls, Mary Ridgeway, Anna Roth and
/ Gertrude Davis were instantly killed
by leaping from the attic to the
ground
! Miss Ethel Rose, teacher on the
first floor of the buildins, whose pu
pills were the youngest in the school,
managed to get all but three of hel
charges out of the building in safety
Two of the smaller ones she carried
in her arms.
Miss Anna Moran, principal of the
school, and two of the teachers, Miss
Gollmar and Miss Rowley, escaped
by one of the windows in the rear
They remained with the panic strick
: en- children until they could do ne
more for them and then sought theil
own safety.
Miss Laura Bodey, the only teache,
on the third floor, formed her pupils
ma line and marched them down tx
the second floor, where, finding The
flames rushing up the stairway, she
: turned them around and hurried then
back again to the third floor. She
here broke window with a chair anc
geeting onto the platform of the fir
escape lifted out her pupils one b,
one and sent them down. Four O
five children who broke the line ,shs
had formed and ran down the stair
way were killed.
One of the heroines of the catas
tropne was little Marie Whitman O
5217 Lake street. She ran through
the smoke-flled halls and grasped
her little brother whom she managed
to drag from room and made on
through the window, both of them be
ing nearly strangled with smoke.
Hooked Big Shark.
The officers Of the steamer Limon
which reached her berth at Lona