The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1910-02-19
MONEY COLLECTED
TO BURY A GIRL
SChooImateS of the Child Make
a House to House
Canvass.
SHE DIED LIKE HEROINE
ORPHANED MABEL HARTEREY
BURNED TO DEATH WHILE SHE
WAS MOTHERING THE BABIES
OF HER AUNT.

New York, Feb. 19.-In the drizzling
rain three stout-hearted little girls of
the Carmelite parocnial school in East
Twenty eighth street went from house
to house raising a fund to bury Il
schOOlmate. 1t was not as charity that
they did it~thcugh potters field was
the alternatiVe-but as a tribute of love
and esteem to the bravest sweetest
little girl who ever tried to be q woman
at 10
In the white marble morgue at the
edge of the river at East Twenty-sixth
street Law the body of 1;-years-old Ma
bel Harterey, of lG4 East Twentyfirst
street, WAC was burned to death while
getting supper for the three children
of her widowed aunt
Bright Pupil
Less than month ago Mabel Har-
terey Was one of the bright pupils in
the Carmclitc school Her mother
was alive then and they all lived with
her step father and his children in 4
flat on East Twenty-eighth street. Ma
bel was healthy minded girl fuller Of
fun and laughter than most of the girls
in the school, and she had beautiful
brown hair and full red lips Her
brown eyes, like sweet Alice's" were
as ready to fill with tears of sympathy
as with merriment.
Then one day her mother died. The
stepfather moved away with his chill
dren, and little Mabel went down to
4O4 East Twenty-first street to live
with her aunt, Mary Stephenson. a
widow and the mother of three little
children
You see, Aunt Mary, pap, who is
only my stepfather, does not need me,
and your children need some one in
the house when you go out to work in
the laundry" Mabel said, in asking the
chance to live with her aunt. Il can
stay home and be mother to your lit
tie ones while you go out working.'
And Mrs. Stephenson, poor woman,
was glad to find so brave and wOmanly
a child to take her place at home.
Dress in a Blaze.
So Mabel bent her young back to the
housework She was getting supper
when her dress blew against the gas
stove and in moment it was ablaze.
She tried to wrap herself in blanket.
while her screams aroused the whole
house. A neighbor ran in and put out
the fire. but by that time Mabel was
unconscious DR. Slattery hurried her
to Bellevue hospital.
Tell Aunt Mary that | will be all
right in a day or two and I'll be back
looking after the children she said
as soon as she came out of the chloro-
form after they had done all that sur
gerry could do for her. And the next
night at o'clock she was 'all right
but she didn't go back to look after
the children. She was with her
mother who had gone before; and the
poor, scorched little body lay in the
morgue waiting for some one to call
for it. Aunt Mary Stephenson wept
broken heartedly, but she couldn't
raise the money to bury the girl.
Then it was that Helen and Mar
garet Conway, of 337 1. Twenty-eighth
street, and Mary Murphy. around the
corner. all nice girls of Mabel's own
age and pupils in the Carmelite
school, went to Father Laffey and
Helen said to him:
Father Laffey, are We going to
let Mabel Harterey be buried in pot
ter's field?'
Question Of Priest.
and what will you do to stop it,"
asked the priest in kindly voice.
I'VE girls will go around among
the parishioners and raise all the
money We can to help bury her Tiff
You'll see that she has mass
Spoken like one of my own girls,
said the priest. You see what you
can raise and l will guarantee right
now that Mabel has a church funeral
such as the little heroine deserves if
you can't raise more than S.. and she
won't go to potters field either
Then the little girls went to Morgue
Keeper John Armstrong and asked
him to hold Mabel's body. He not only