The Collinwood Tragedy by James Jessen Badal

Author:James Jessen Badal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

The painful identification process. (Everett, Complete Story of the Collinwood School Disaster)

Janitor Fritz Hirter’s son Walter was among the first to get out of the building, but he returned in search of his sister Ida. Neither survived. Margaret Caravona’s mother broke down completely when she learned of her only daughter’s death. According to the Press, the hysterical woman tore her hair while screaming loudly; reportedly her agonized cries could be heard for blocks. In a vain attempt to locate the body of his fourteen-year-old daughter, Hattie, Harry Marks came to the storehouse-turned-morgue several times on Wednesday. The girl had not been seen since the disaster, and Marks assumed she had been among the fire’s victims. On Thursday morning, he returned to the morgue one last time, only to see Hattie standing in the crowd surrounding the building. Wednesday morning, instead of going to school, she had run off to visit her aunt in Cleveland and had not heard of the fire until Thursday morning. Early Saturday morning, March 7, eleven-year-old Glen Barber died in Glenville Hospital, thus becoming the last of the 172 Lakeview students to lose his life. Between bouts of delirium, suffering from bad burns and internal injuries sustained in his jump from a second-story window, the boy spoke of his escape. The day after his death, the Plain Dealer recounted his last words: “I am standing on a large rock, larger than all the world.”

. . .

Of the nine teachers at Lakeview Elementary, six escaped the disaster physically unscathed. First-grade teacher Pearl Lynn sustained severe burns to her back before rescuers Frank Dorn and Charles Wahl could pull her, virtually unconscious, to safety through the rear door, her clothes badly burned and torn. The poor woman became hysterical Thursday night, and by Friday she had fallen into a state of virtual mental collapse—a condition that would excuse her from testifying at the coroner’s inquest on Friday, March 6.

Third-grade teacher Grace Fiske tried to control the crush of panicked children rushing toward the rear doors but was trampled by the very students she was trying to save. Would-be rescuer Max Shubert of Lake Avenue witnessed her frantic struggles but couldn’t help her. “She was jammed so tight against it [the rear door] she couldn’t move,” he told the Press. “She was half in and half out. I tried to pull her out. I tried to pull children out, but they were wedged so tightly I couldn’t.” When rescuers finally located and uncovered her, they found the charred remains of two children wrapped in her skirts. Though Grace Fiske survived the fire, she died around noon at Glenville Hospital.

The last time anyone saw second-grade teacher Katherine Weiler, she was frantically attempting to redirect children away from the clogged rear door to the fire escape on the second floor, even as her own clothes were burning. “Teacher Chooses Death That Others May Live,” proclaimed the Plain Dealer. Like Grace Fiske, she fell before the surging, unstoppable wave of frightened students

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.