Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.
This week’s Sepia Saturday photo shows a family rescuing what remained of their household belongings following a fire. Interviews with survivors of housefires always say the same thing: “We lost everything, but at least we’re alive. We can rebuild.” I hope that if such tragedy comes my way, I can be that positive. Several distant relatives experienced the horror of devastating fires.
For several years I have searched without success for the story of a fire that took the lives of two little children, Vernon and Daisey Clift.
George and Sallie Jollett Clift
Vernon and Daisey
Vernon and Daisey were the first children born to George and Sallie Jollett Clift, my great-grandmother’s sister. Whether the house caught on fire or the children were playing near an open fire is not known. However, their little tombstones tell a bit of the story.
Some years later, a similar tragedy struck the Jollett family again. Macile Sullivan, granddaughter of my great-grandmother’s brother Burton Lewis Jollett, was just a little over a year old when she got too close to an open flame. Her clothes caught fire and she suffered extensive burns. Was it from a fireplace in the house? Was there a burn pile outside where her parents John and Fleta Sullivan burned trash and brush? Apparently, her death did not make the newspaper either.
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| On the back of the death certificate. I don't understand the request for eye drops. |
In 1959 a son-in-law of my great-grandmother’s sister Leanna Jollett Knight died from pneumonia brought on due to 2nd and 3rd degree burns. Ben Shifflett had tried to put out a brush fire when his clothes caught fire.
Ben and Bertha Knight
Shifflett
This was a real downer, wasn’t it! Let’s hope my friends at Sepia Saturday will have amusing stories of moving households and people with mattresses on their head.
Wendy
© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.
Tragic.
ReplyDeleteI've always been afraid of fire, though I do love campfires...but it can get out of control and be devastating.
ReplyDeleteVery sad indeed. Back in the day, wooden houses came furnished with oil lamps, coal fires, and wood stoves, making the risks of a fire so great as to be commonplace. I suspect most house fires were not newsworthy until they expanded to take out a neighborhood or town. Accidents involving children are especially troubling to read in old newspaper reports. There was a surprising stupidity about simple fire prevention measures. Smoking in bed being a too common explanation for a fire.
ReplyDeleteNot newsworthy - now that is something I had not considered. You are probably right that people lived with fires as just another day in the life.
DeleteSo many fire-related tragedies in one extended family. Your post reminded me that I have never documented the fire that destroyed my step-dad’s home when he was a boy.
ReplyDeleteThese tragic stories bring to mind the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that claimed the lives of so many female garment workers in lower Manhattan in 1911. As with your extended family members, the clothing of the time -- long skirts with petticoats and flammable cotton -- accompanied by fire for heat/cooking were an unfortunate disaster waiting to happen. So sad that you had so many of these tragedies in your family.
ReplyDeleteFire has always made me nervous from the time I was 3 years old and witnessed a huge fire that consumed three houses on the hill above us. All the sirens and people rushing around in the street trying to go help didn't help. Sirens make me nervous too. And look where I've lived all my married life! In fire hazard areas of the woods and mountains. Ack!
ReplyDeleteSo many terrible fire tragedies. So sad!
ReplyDeleteInteresting that Vernon and Daisey died a week apart. I wonder about the details of that.
ReplyDeleteHow sad. Burns, even little ones, are so painful, I can't imagine how awful it would be to die because of burns--or to be the parent or other relative of a loved one with burns. From my early days in research family I've had a concern for mothers who had to cook over open fires with little children in their care, and I've wondered how they managed to keep the children safe. So far I haven't come across any children's deaths by fire. Poison, yes, but no fire.
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