I will never forget walking home from school in the fall of my freshman year at Muncie Northside High School. I was at the bottom of our street and noticed a couple of fire trucks up ahead. How exciting, I thought, there's a fire on our street.
As I got closer I realized that the fire was at our house and I was no longer excited. I was horrified. I ran up the street to our house on the corner to find Mom and Mrs. Sears, one of our neighbors. To be honest I don't remember too many details except that I just lost it on Mrs. Sears' shoulder. I was worried about our cat and dog. Turns out that the dog had run away (we did find him) and the cat hid inside.
Mom had come home earlier and opened the garage door. She heard a "Whoosh" and all of a sudden there was a fire in the garage. We figured later that it must have been spontaneous combustion. I don't know how she called the fire department but they did a great job of putting it out before it spread to the rest of our house. Most of the damage was in the garage and attic above it where, unfortunately, we had put some family keepsakes: my mom's childhood doll house, my rocking horse (both of which were made by my Grandpa Falk). The Christmas ornaments were there, too, but luckily not the handmade ones.
We couldn't stay in our house for a few days while the damage was cleaned up and repaired. One of Chris' friend's parents (the Stanleys) loaned us their RV for Mom and Dad to stay in, parked in our driveway. We kids stayed with friends. Thankfully, repairs and cleaning were taken care of and it didn't seem long before life was back to normal.
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| Princeton Bureau County Tribune, December 31, 1915 |
The second fire story in our family is a little more serious.
Theodore Johnson is my great-grandfather. His daughter Edna is my paternal grandmother. Edna was the fourth daughter of Theodore and Anna Johnson. She would have been 15 in 1915, about the same age as I was when we had our fire.
The fire at the Johnson's house happened on Christmas morning. According to what I can make out from the article, (and I remember Grandma telling this story once or twice) the family was ready to go to church early on Christmas morning but someone forgot their hat so Grandma's mom Anna went back to look for it in the closet. In 1915 the house that they lived in didn't have electric or gas power, and it would have been dark, so Anna had to use a kerosene lamp. Whether she left the lamp burning in the closet or something caught fire that she didn't notice is not known. But at 6:45 a.m. while the family was worshiping at church on Christmas morning, a neighbor saw that their house was on fire and called the fire department.
Princeton had a fire department at the time but no dispatching service like we have now. The telephone operator misunderstood where the fire was and 20 minutes were wasted because of the mix up.
The paper reported on the fire:
“When the wagon finally arrived the interior of the house was a mass of flames and it was impossible for the firemen to enter and save the furniture. The house property was covered by insurance amounting to $1,000. No insurance was carried on the furniture….
“The only piece of furniture removed from the house was a piano. This was dropped by the firemen as they were taking it out of the house and was damaged so that it is practically of no use.
“The residence will be repaired at once. During the repairing of the home the Johnson family are living with relatives and friends in the vicinity of their home.”
I can't imagine the tragedy of losing your house on Christmas Day, along with all the presents and food for the celebration. And the loss of the piano! My grandma and her sisters were all very musical, I'm sure they mourned the piano.
Hopefully Anna was able to let go of any burden she might have felt about starting the fire. The blessing was that no lives were lost in the fire. I'm sure that, as the ashes smoldered, the family eventually was able to count their blessings. In a tragedy, we find hope in counting our blessings.
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