5000mls. With Sad News

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30453, 29 May 1964, Page 1

5000mls. With Sad News

(N.Z. Press Association) NAPIER, May 28. A 35-year-old woman this week flew 5000 miles to break the news to her parents in Napier that three of her four children had died in a fire. Mrs Marie Littlefield, of Concord, California, lost her children in a fire 10 days ago. Her parents, Mr and Mrs Stuart Hook, of Gallipoli street, Onekawa, had not been told of the accident until she arrived home on Tuesday night.

The children, Cheryl, aged 12, David, 10, and Alison,

seven, died from suffocation as they slept when fire gutted the lounge of the Littlefield home. Firemen fighting the blaze were not aware anyone was in the bedrooms at the rear of the house. The fire started when a television set overheated in the lounge and the whole room “exploded” into flames. Neighbours called the fire department. Mrs Littlefield said her husband, Mr Darrel Littlefield, had left the house to pick her up from a hospital five miles away where she is a nurse.

“As soon as we arrived back Darrel rushed inside and brought the children out,” she said. “They were given oxygen and resuscitation but it was no use.

“It must have all happened very suddenly. There was no hope. They just died in their sleep.”

The surviving child, Glen, aged 16, was staying the night at a friend’s home. Mr Littlefield is a teacher at the Mount Diablo High School at Concord. Teachers, nurses and doctors, friends and the people of Concord paid for his wife’s trip to Napier. Mrs Littlefield met her husband in England during World War 11. Her parents came to New Zealand to live 15 years ago. Mrs Littlefield will leave Napier by air on Sunday on the first stage of her journey, back to America.