TEN OUT OF SIXTEEN

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 70, 24 March 1931, Page 9

TEN OUT OF SIXTEEN

CHILDREN BURNT TO DEATH

POOR FAMILY'S LOSS

NEW YORK, 22nd A message from Holdcrncss (New Hampshire) states that residents of central New Hampshire were; shocked when fire destroyed. the home;.of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Avery,. killing seven of their sixteen children, and fatally injuring throe others. ' : , The family was dne of the largest in tho_ State. Desperately poor, they lived in a little house in which they had been making a ■ long struggle against poverty, refusing the aid of neighbours. . . : ' The fire occurred on a bitterly cold night. The parents and the surviving children rushed out of the house, thinly clad, into -the deep snow. ; Then tho' parents returned to the burning building and tried to rescue the other children. - : ■ .:..■'

Mrs. Avery succeeded in saving her infant daughter. The .father tried to save another child in the same room, but was driven out by .the flames.

Six children, trapped in a loft, fell downstairs into the flames.

The survivors waited until the home was destroyed, then walked through the snow and biting wind to the nearest neighbour some distance away. They are now suffering severely from exposure and shock.