CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY

Southland Times, Issue 19459, 26 January 1925, Page 7

CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY

OVER 30 PERSONS PERISH. AWFUL END TO PARTY. The most tragic of a large number of Christmastide tragedies in the United States was the terrible Christmas tree fire which occurred at a school party at Hobbswitch, near Hobart, Oklahoma, on Christmas eve. The party was held in a flimsily constructed one-storey wooden building, and the conflagration, which led to 32 persons being burned to death, was caused by a large Christmas tree being ignited by the flame of a candle while Santa Claus was in the act of distributing gifts to the children. In addition to the heavy death-roll of the evening, nearly 40 persons were more or less seriously burned, and many of these subsequently succumbed to their injuries. When the flames enveloped the building it was quickly doomed with the struggling mass of humanity practically imprisoned under its roof. Panic stricken, the crowd, estimated at 200, women and children, swamped the only exit, shrieking and fainting as flames spread round them. Heavy wire screens prevented exit through the windows. Several families lost two or more members in the fire. The family of T. C. Coffey, consisting of his wife and four children, was completely destroyed. The names of Bolding, Curtis, Biggers, Peck, Reville and Clements appeared two or more times in the list of the dead. TRAGEDY INSTEAD OF WEDDINGS. Bells which, were to have pealed for the wedding of Claude Bolding and Gladys Clements on Christmas Day, within twenty-four hours were tolling a mournful knell as the body of the bride-to-be was being laid in its last resting place in the Hobart Cemetefy. Miss Clements was one of the three sisters who perished in the fire. Mr Bolding was badly burned in an attempt to save his sweetheart, and was taken to a hospital in a dying condition, but hopes were entertained that his life might eventually be saved. One of Miss Clement’s sisters, Mrs Stevenson, went to Hobart from Michigan to attend the wedding, but two days after the date set for the ceremony the bodies of the mother and child were lying side by side, together with that of Miss Clements’ other sister, who was to have acted as bridesmaid.

Romance again bowed to tragedy in the case of Aubrey Coffey and Vesta Jackson, who were to have married next spring. Both perished in the fire. Mr Andrew Jackson, brother of the girl, sought to rescue the pair when, standing on the outside, he tried to tear loose the wire netting which barred the windows. The wire resisted his efforts.

Mr J. F. Eden, who was carried through the doorway of the building, sought to force his way back into the inferno for his three-year-old daughter, but was unable to gain an entrance and the child was burned to death. Mrs W. G. Bolding lost three children in the fire. One of them, Edward, aged eight, she had managed to get out of the building with her, but once outside the boy remembered his toys he had left behind and dashed back after them. He never came out. PATHETIC FUNERALS.

Several of the victims in the hospitals subsequently died, and the funerals were of a strangely pathetic nature, one afternoon 16 being interred in the local cemetery, followed next day by 17 further victims of the holocaust.

At the previous Christmas Eve celebrations at the school Christmas trees caught fire, but' were extinguished without serious damage. At Christmas, 1923, William Curtis, who lost his life in the recent fire, played the role of Santa Claus, and during the distribution of gifts his white beard caught fire, but he quickly extinguished it. The school, which is known as “No. 42,” has a tragic history. A former building was destroyed by a cyclone two years ago. Some years ago a fire was caused in the building by an over-heated stove, but there was no loss of life.