Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1915-11-22
FATHER AND TWO
CHILDREN LOST IN
BELLEV|LLE FIRE
Six Others Escape Death by
Leaping from Win
dows.
SEVEN FAMILIES IN TWO
TENEMENTS HOMELESS
Flames Sweep Through Build
ings, Causing Loss
of $4,000.
FAMILIES IN TWO
TENEMENTS HOMELESS

Three persons were burned TO DEATH
six others had narrow escapes from
the same fate and seven families were
made homeless in fire which swept
through two large tenement houses
in Main street, Belleville, early yes
terday morning. The blaze is believed
to have started from an overturned
kerosene lamp. The damage to build
ings and contents is estimated at
$4,000 -.
The Dead.
Frank Ksnkas, forty years old.
Elsie kankas. FIVE years old.
Eiye Kanias, two years old.
The three met their deaths in the
apartment in which the fire started,
at 126 Main street. Mrs. Kankas
saved her daughter Emma, eight
years old, by dropping her from a
second-story window. Mrs. Kankas
leaped to safety from the same vim
dow. Both escaped injury, landing in
the soft. earth between the sidewalk
and the house.
Leap from Windows.
Four boarders in the Kankas home
escaped through windows. Ericls
Lahti. who mad a room in the rear OF
the second floor was slightly burned
on the hands and face and his eye
brows and the hair on his head were
singed before he leaped from win
dow IN the rear.
On the first floor Mr.. and Mrs. Isaac
Hantella and their two-months-old
girl were asleep when the fire started.
Mrs. Hantella smashed window
facing the street. and got out. Her
husband passed out the baby to her
and followed them to safety.
The inmates in the other apart
ments in the two buildings had no
time to save any of their belongings.
The six families. of thirty-one per-
sons, were routed from their beds by
the police and firemen, some of them
In scant attire.
The fire is supposed to have started
about 2:20l o'clock in a bedroom on
the first floor of the Ikankas home.
When Mrs. Kankas retired. about 10
O'clock, with. her three children sire
left her husband sitting at table IN
the middle room on the first floor.
There wassa lighted kerosene lamp on
esisfe him. This room vas
a1pied by Henry HanteIla,
Mrs. KanHas. but he was
time xankas went out
WAS seen at o'clock at
Main and William streets,
Saves Daughter and self.
Mrs. RanKas awolse with a choking
sensation. She got up and opened the
door leading 10 the hall "A great
volume of smoke came into the room
and the stairway was mass of
flames She slammed the door, and,
running back. hastily dressed. Open
ing q window facing in. Main street,
she took her daughter Emma from
bed and lowered her from the window
as far as she could reach and dropped
her to the ground, a distance of about
twenty feet. She lowered herself
from the window-sill and dropped.
She was so excited for a few min
utes she forgot the other two chill
dren. When she realized their fate
she ran UP and down the street.
screaming and tearing her hair. Her
cries aroused some of the neighbors.
William Huband. of 137 Main street,
who was on his way home, was at
tracted bv the wornan's cries. He
tried 10 enter the front hallway, and.
findfne it ahlaze, ran up Main street
10 tho ward of the Bellevi1le Motor
Boat club. He climbed over the
fences in the rear of the burning
building. facing the Passaic river.
Flames BaIk Attempted Rescue.
when he got to the Kankas apart
rnentss he smashed q window In the
room in which tile blaze was supposed
to have started. AS he did SO the
flanes burst through. When they
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