News: Willard - Clair fire (07 Jan 1910)
Contact: Stan
Email: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Clair, Dammeier, Altenbern
----Source: Greenwood
Gleaner (Greenwood, Clark Co., Wis.) (13 Jan 1910)
Last Friday afternoon
the little home of A.L. Clair, with its entire contents of household goods, was
totally destroyed by fire at Willard.
Mr. Clair had gone to Neillsville
that morning to be in attendance at the school convention, which was being held
there Friday and Saturday, while Mrs. Clair, at the time of the fire, was
watering the stock. The time being about two-thirty o'clock, when she thought
she heard a crackling sound, such as a fire always makes, and opened the kitchen
door to investigate, when she was greeted with a dense cloud of smoke. Terribly
frightened and almost frantic for the safety of her little ones, whom she had
left playing in the kitchen, Mrs. Clair rushed into the smoke filled room, and
but for the great presence of mind of the older child, there is no doubt but
what the two children would have suffocated from the smoke long before the
mother knew that there was a fire about to destroy their little home.
Little Allen is only about four years old, but with all the strength he could
muster into his little body he put forth in his heroic and successful effort in
dragging his little eighteen-month-old sister into another room and out of
danger as he supposed, and it was there that the mother found them. Taking the
children in her arms, Mrs. Clair rushed from the house and spread the alarm, and
immediately a gang of twelve sturdy men who were working nearby, promptly
answered to the call, and they, with several others, worked valiantly to subdue
the flames, but they had gained too much of a head start and could not be
checked; all that could be done was to silently watch the work of destruction.
The homeless people were taken into the home of Mr. and Mrs. William
Dammeier, where they were made welcome and given most comfortable quarters, and
where they will live until other shelter can be provided for them.
The
loss is a total one and the family has the sympathy, in a most subatantial way,
of every person in their immediate neighborhood, and through the agency of A.C.
Altenbern, the Greenwood citizens also contribute generously to their needs.