FIRE IN THE NIGHT

Excerpt #5 from Dr. Crittenden's memoirs.

FIRE IN THE NIGHT (1934-9 years old)

We used a monster wood-burning stove in the kitchen to cook with. It had the upper food warmers, a huge oven, and a tank that held water to be kept heated. Biscuits made in that stove were delicious. It ate up small sticks of stove wood in huge quantities. In the bedroom adjacent to the kitchen we had a large coal-burning heater. Its metal pipe joined that of the kitchen stove in a flue that served both. When we had a hot fire going in the cooking range, its stovepipe would turn cherry red, and it was teh same with the coal stove in the bedroom.

One cold winter night in 1934 we boys begged mama to parch us some peanuts. She agreed, as she usually did, and we fired up the big cook stove. We enjoyed eating the roasted peanuts and went to bed happy. Little did we know of what lay in store for us before the night was over.

All five boys slept in one room, three in one bed and two in the other. It was the same room that had the coal-burning heater. Dad discovered the house was on fire about 2:00 AM. The fire was centered in the chimney area of the kitchen and bedroom. The flue had a defect in it-a hole that allowed a spark to get out into the woodwork and to smolder until it finally burst into flame. Dad callled to mama to get the boys out while he got the garden hose and went into the kitchen to fight the fire.

We had no telephone. There was one a block away at the Bostick's house. Mama sent E.J. up there to tell them to call the city fire department. Neighbors began arriving and helped bring out some pieces of furniture. Dad was forced out by the thick smoke. He had been the busiest one, but he was the one who saw that Don was missing. We called for Don, thinking he was among the crowd, but there was no answer. Dad thought he might be still in the house. He plunged back into the smoking and burning house, going straight to the bedroom where the thickest smoke was. He felt around in the bed for Don, and sure enough he was there. Dad brought Don out. By that time the fire truck was there, and they helped to get Don breathing again. We always thought it was a miracle that Don was saved, and our dad was the bravest man we knew for going back after him!