The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-10-28
FIRE HORROR
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them and soon the vestibule was SO
| damned with living and dead that the
firemen could not force an entrance
The sixteen sisters escaped
The flames, it is supposed, started
! in the basement, and, according to
some. were caused by the explosion &c, Z
building was heated. There is doubt,
however, as to the exact origin OF the
fire.
A large percentage of the pupils
were children of foreign parentage. In
the number were many of Irish and
Italian descent.
The ftremen fought the fire from
ladders raised to the windows while
the police cleared the vestibule.
The bodies of the dead generally
were burned beyond recognition. Mary
Leeds and Marion Hayes were found
in the crush badly burned, but alive,
and were removed to a hospital
ST Johns parochial school stands on
Chestnut street near St. Johns Cath
olic church and the home of the Key
Nicholas Murphy, the pastor, opposite
is st. Johns convent
Police Lines Are Rushed.
The first alarm brought a hundred
distracted mothers to the school yard
Soon they were Joined by other rela-
tives of the pupils, until the building
was surrounded by a great crowd OF
men and women who rushed the Pc
lice lines in a wild effort to reach
their children. The police could not
stop the rush. What they failed to do
was accomplished presently by the
flames, which shooting from the win
dows of the building, held back the
unhappy throng.
There were no fire escapes on the
outside of the building. Maurice Har-
ris, aged ten years, carried his one
old, on his back, down the smoke
choked StairwayS to safety.
Blast, Then Fire.
At noon only two of the bodies,
those of Lizzie Nolan, II, and Mary
Sullivan, 16, had been identified. Both
girls were to have been graduated this
year.
Michael Dunn, who lives near the
school, said he heard a muffled ex-
plOsion in the school building jTst be-
fore it was enveloped in flames
When the ruins had cooled suff.-
cient to permit it, Building Inspector
A. H. Mcdonald and W. S. Murrel OF
the state police made their way for Il
reported that the steam boiler which
was reported to have exploded, was
intact.
Joseph Donahue, the engineer of
the building, also declared that the
blaze could not have originated from
the boiler. He said that he banked
his fire before he left it at O'Clock
this morning.
Children Piled in Rows.
Genevieve Phillips, one of those who
escaped, said:
There was no confusion and
everything went smoothly until we
came to a point about half way down
the stairs between the first and sec
ond floors. Looking down over the
heads of the children ahead, we saw
a terrible spectacle. The younger
children from the first floor were piled
up in front of the doorway. The sis
tiers were doing their best to get the
children through the doors.
Many of the little ones were terror
stricken and crying at the top of their
lungs Some had tainted and were
being dragged along in the crush,
few had fallen to the floor. Some of
the children most of them under seven
years old were struggling to keep
their feet. The sisters were working
frantically to rescue those who had
fallen but the task was almost hope
less one.
"A small cloud of smoke was drift
ing through the doorway over the
heads of the struggling, hysterical lit
tie children, and it seemed that the
smoke was coming from the basement
doorway. Many of us were able to go
around the side of the throng at the
doorways and into the school room at
the side of the first floor hallway.
From the window of this room we
Jumped onto the ground"