At Least 70 Inmates Killed In Explosion, Fire At Home for Aged Some Visitors, Employees Not Accounted For  

Warrenton, Mo. (AP) Grim-faced men poked through the smoldering ruins of an old folks home today for the bodies of at least 70 persons who died in the blazing funeral pyre within minutes Sunday. The searchers, working in spots cooled off by streams of water, had found 16.  Smoke and steam continued to rise from the ruins. Seventy of the 155 inmates, including 45 women, were reported missing in the fast-spreading fire.  A ripping explosion followed.   One eyewitness said the entire building was aflame in three or four minutes.  Another said about 15. Authorities were baffled by the speed with which the flames raced through the two story brick building. The fire, probably the worst in Missouri’s history, brought quick demands for state legislation that would tighten safety regulations for nursing homes and institutions for the aged. The charred bodies were buried in a pile of twisted iron beds, plumbing fixtures, brick and mortar in the basement. Searchers moved about one ton of debris to locate each body.  Some, all but cremated, were so badly burned they were put in cardboard cartons little more than a foot square.  The building went down by floors.  The roof fell in.  The second floor followed and it all collapsed into the basement. None of the 70 inmates reported missing had turned up overnight, further confirming the estimated death toll. Officials felt most of the Sunday visitors managed to escape since no inquiries had been received.  Just how many were there probably will never be known. Survivors of the tragedy were given a breakfast of soft boiled eggs, oatmeal, bread and coffee or milk in their temporary quarters in the homes administration building.  The food was cooked in the high school cafeteria, about two blocks away. Mrs. Bernice McDaniel, a nurse’s aid who was on the second floor when the fire broke out, said she could recall only two Sunday visitors on her floor.  She didn't know whether they escaped. Mrs. McDaniel, 42, said she and Mrs. Alta Floyd were on duty when her 10-year daughter called out “fire”.  All three escaped unhurt. “We made our way down the stairs and out the crowded front door,” she said.  “We didn't have an opportunity to rescue any of the patients.  They were all bedridden.   Mrs. McDaniel, resting at her Montgomery City, Mo., home where she was “terribly shaken up,” said after reaching safety she “heard a terrible explosion.” She said there were seven nurse’s aides, janitors and kitchen workers on duty at the time of the tragedy which was all over in minutes. Bodies could be seen in the rubble.  They were so badly burned that plastic bags and cardboard cartons were used to gather them up.  Most of the bodies appeared to be in the basement.   County Coroner F. H. Knigge estimated the death toll “from 70 on up.”  The state highway patrol, in reporting 70 inmates unaccounted for, did not include employees. Firemen from 25 nearby communities, townspeople and attendants rushed into the burning building and helped bedridden inmates and injured out before flames thwarted further rescue attempts. Shortly after the fire’s start, a muffled explosion shot flames and smoke billowing into the air, visible more than 30 miles away. It started off as a pleasant Sunday afternoon.  Relatives were visiting with inmates.  Some 50 of them were believed to have been in the building when the fire broke out at 3:45 p.m.  Not all of them had been accounted for.   The fire reportedly started in a hallway nearby.  The operator of the home, Woodrow O’Sullivan, said he had no idea what caused it.  Authorities said they were puzzled over how quickly flames enveloped the 65-year-old building.  O’Sullivan estimated property damage at $250,000. Mrs. Myrtle Gordon, 68, St. Charles, Mo., who needs crutches to walk, was resting on her bed on the first floor.  She smelled smoke and then heard running footsteps. “I threw on a robe and grabbed my crutches and went into the hall,” she related.  “I never walked faster in my life.  When I got to the door people were jamming up there and I got shoved out with everyone else.” Thirty-nine patients in an adjoining building, also a two-story brick structure, were evacuated safely and taken to a grocery store across the street. Warren Stuart, an employee at a nearby filling station, was putting gasoline in a car when he heard the fire alarm in this east central Missouri town of 1,600, 55 miles west of St. Louis. He helped six inmates to safety before flames turned him back.  He told of hearing screams and cries for help. Mrs. Velma O’Sullivan, wife of the operator of the home, was injured slightly helping 10 inmates escape.  She and others laid mattresses on the ground and told inmates, standing at windows, to jump.  Several jumped the 20 feet to safety. O’Sullivan, who had operated the home since 1948, said his patients ranged in age from 50 to 99 years.  He called it the Katie Jane Memorial Home. Mayor Oscar H. Kossina said the Warrenton Volunteer Fire Department had inspected the home only four weeks ago and it had “passed inspection.” The nursing home fire was the third of its kind in the state in slightly more than four years.  Twelve persons lost their lives in a rest home fire at Puxico, in southeast Missouri last July.  Eighteen persons burned to death in the fall of 1952 in Hillsboro, south of St. Louis.  The Hillsboro home was operated by O’Sullivan’s sister, Mrs. James Lewis and her husband. 

FROM BELLEVILLE DAILY ADVOCATE – MONDAY, FEB. 18, 1957