Bio: Covey Children Burned to Death (Dec 1904)

Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Covey, Pratt

----Source: Greenwood Gleaner (Greenwood, Clark Co., Wis.) 29 Dec 1904

Through the relatives here (Greenwood) we are able to give the facts regarding the fire at Atlanta, in which Clayton and Frank, two boys of Joseph Covey, were burned to death Tuesday night of last week.

It seems the father was at a nearby store doing some shopping, leaving his wife, who is step-mother to the children, sewing by the table on which was a lighted lamp. Having occasion to leave her work she slipped or got tangled in her work so that her arm upset the lamp onto the floor at the foot of the open stairway leading to the boys’ bed. The oil from the lamp was in flames in an instant, thse catching on the loose paper on the wall and filling the whole house, which was an old one dry as tinder, with a mass of flames that made rescue of anything impossible.

When the fire fiend had spent itself only the charred remains of the two boys was all that was left of them.

The boys were aged nine and eleven, respectively, and were born in Greenwood. They are grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Pratt, who went up early Sunday morning to the scene of the horrible tragedy, the mother of the boys, who is married again and lives at Barron, being then in a critical condition as a result of the shock.

Mr. Covey himself was badly burned in his efforts to reach the boys through the fierce flames and blinding smoke.

The stricken parents may be sure of the heartfelt sympathy of their Greenwood acquaintances.