Evening star., 1947-07-30
By Vincent Dwyer
= Stor Stoff Correspondent

HARRISONBURG, Va, July
3o.-City officials started an in
vestigation today to find the
cause of a terrific explosion in
a beauty parlor that killed 1o
women and injured "a other
persons yesterday, six of them
critically.
Firemen believed that manufac-
tured gas, which the city uses,
escaped from a faulty pipe in the
basement of the beauty parlor and
was ignited, causing the explosion.
Jesse James Mullen, %, OF Harri-
sonburg, had just delivered load
of coal and was in the basement
shoveling it into corner when the
blast occurred. He was critically in
jured. At Rockingham Memorial
Hospital, where all the injured were
taken. he told nurses he lit match
land that is the last thing I re-
member"
Most of the dead were patrons,
operators and students at Pauline's
Beauty Shop and College in the 200
block of South Main street at the
edge of the business district of this
city of 10000.
Parlor Is Demolished.
Among the dead was Dorothy Bow
man Of Mount Jackson, who was
getting permanent wave as a pres
ent from her parents fer her goth
birthday anniversary. Curriers' were
still bound tightly in her hair when
her body was dug from the debris.
The explosion demolished the
beauty parlor, blowing the brick
walls out and causing the roof first
to rise and then drop, trapping the
women. 1t destroyed an adjoining
jewelry store, killing two, and blew
down the side wall and part Of the
porch of two-story house on the
other side.
Stained glass windows In the
Methodist Episcopal Church directly
across South Main street were
broken. An automobile on an
elevated grease rack three blocks
from the explosion scene reportedly
was blown partially from the rack
Windows in homes and ofdces four
blocks away were broken.
Many Victims Burned.
A flash fire that followed the blast
was quickly extinguished, but many
Of the victims were badly burned.
A clock attached to a sign II
front of the jewelry store stopped
at 2:10 PM, EST, setting the minute
Of the explosion.
Student operators worked In thu
room directly above the basement
at the rear of the building.
Patrons of the beauty shop who
were not seriously injured emerged
dazedly in clothing torn and bloody
Two women in the beauty shol
we're blown through the roof.
Twenty -one Women In Parlor.
Twenty-one women were IN th'
beauty shop and school when the ex'
plosion occurred-six customers, 1oul
operators. one instructor and 10 stu
dents. All were either killed or IN
jured.
Mostlof the injured were cut b!
glass or debris and several of them
as we'll as the dead, were pulled IRON
the wreckage by rescue workers, WHIT
included a number of war veteran
volunteers. Citizens quickly ralliee
from the first shock and pltcneo II
TO hedp out in every possible way.
The Fire Department Auxiliary Sc
up a refreshment stand in the Meth
odish Church and served food ant
drink to the weary workers.
John O'Neill, plumbers helpe
and part time special ofhcer OF har
risonburg. was connecting radia
tor in the front room OF the 1ram
house next to the beauty parlo
when, he said, he felt jar Xix
an earthquake"
The house quivered," he said
then I heard an explosion. In
second there was another, tnen
third. I saw flash OF f1ame ant
the walls fell. People starte'
shrieking."
Mr.. and Mrs. e. A. Lynch, wn'
live in the house with their thre'
children, were not hurt Their sons
Houston, 8, and Carlyle, IL, wer'
cut and bruised. An infant daughte
OF the couple normally is in her cri'
in the room which suffered TN
worst damage from the blast, nu
she had been moved because OF TN
radiator work being done.
John ONeills brother, c. w
% Neill, had been painting the IN