The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1917-01-13
GIRL s HERO|SM
SAVED HUNDREDS
Miss Mcnamara Stuck to
Telephone to Give Warn
ing of Fire
FOUR THOUSAND
FLED TO SAFETY
Pieces of Exploding Shells Flew
Through Building, One Grazing Her,
Before She Painted Lucky That
She Went to Get Chewing Gum.

NEW YORK, Jan. 13.-Tessic
Mcnamara, telephone switchboard girl
"a, the big munitions plant Of the Can
adian Car and Foundry company on the
Jersey meadows near Kingsland, freed
her red hair of receiving harness and
got up to get stick Of gum from the
pocket of her JACKIE. hanging on the
wall near by This was n $40 j. IA.
THIS IS the way the New York San
q ems a thrilling story o. descriptive
whiting
she happened to glance out of win
dow which overlooked long avenue
OF concrete and iron one story build
IS and forgot all about her longing
for gum. For wisp of smoke was
curling from the caves of building 30,
a she'd stored with 200 gallons of gaso-
lire and used for cleaning and polish
ing high explosive shells stuffed with
trinitrotoluol 1T. \. T., shed not
tea wards distant from another packed
with loaded shells, 10000 of them,
awaiting Shipment to Russia.
With one bound TesSie was back at
| the switchboard headgear adjusted,
| fighting to conquer her rising panic
Size beat down her fears, (she knew
what smoke wisps portended in vast
| plant packed with tremendous explo-
siyesJ and rapidly connected with shed
after shed-iust 4 word or two
Fire in shed 30-Sure to reach shell
tears on side track-don I wait see
ond-get all men out.
Workers Swarm to Safety.
And as she telephoned Shed 50 burst
in.o flame, iron walls and iron roof
melting into running metal. Macarthur.
/ the plant fire chief, was sprinting for
| the engine plant Men were swarmino
| like bees from n dozen sheds to which
fessie 5 swift, cool warning had flashed.
| She watched them in their rush toward
| tha great gates on the Ridge road, her
/ fear sitting her at times, but always
conquered by her pluckv heart. and kept
lplugging in and out as she got speech
with building after building Without
turning her head from the switchboard
she saw then heard, the disaster de-
ye!op.
/ As she telephoned she saw shed 20
lcolSumed in a great squirt of flame saw
the flames leap to the railroad sidetrack
where six ears stood stuffed with I. y.
| T., in bulk, explosive to he used i'll shell
filing, at need. The fire touched and
loFarran the cars and the T. y. T., let 90
not violently or loudly. for the stuff
does not explode at the touch of fire
but i'll series of vast pufs as if many
gigantic tirecrackcrs were fizzling out
The girl saw the fire leap from the ears
toward shed p and it required all of
the nerve she could summon to stick at
her post because she knew what that
would mean.
Shed Held $4,000 Shells.
IN shed IS were $4,000 shells packed
IN cases and ready to be shipped to the
Russian army The fire rolled up the
iron walls. Tessie waited. Nearly ten
minutes had passed since she first dis
covered the smoke curling from tn,
polishing shed with its 200-gallon gaso
line tank.
! In that ten minutes her fidelity and
courage had gotten warning to every
building of the thirty-six in the twenty
acre plant. Nearly 1000 men were run.
nlng for the gates or had already
reached the open roads and meadows
And then she'd 2S let 90, one tremen
dous roar after another as ease after
case heated from the flames and deton
ated.
As Tessic sent in her final calls red
hot fragments Of steel ripped from the
bursting shells and flung high in the al,
descended upon the roof of the head
quarters building within five feet of heI
head. Some of the pieces tore through
one just grazing her She tainted.
With building after building explod.
ing, Macarthur, the fire chief, and q
few Of his aids dragged the unconscious
girl from the switchboard, carried hel