A TALE OF THREE FIRES
by Albin Nelson
The morning of May 5th, 1970 dawned cold, clear and windy. I had left for work in the Marwayne district the day before. Dorothy awoke at 5 o'clock and built a fire in the wood heater to take the chill off the kitchen. After dozing off again, she was awakened after about fifteen minutes by the smell of smoke. She found the porch on fire and the kitchen filled with smoke. Realizing that it would be impossible to put the fire out she instructed the boys to break their bedroom window and get out. Ricky's arm was cut in the process and Dorothy had to keep it wrapped in the skirt of her nightgown to keep it from bleeding too badly.
As they started out walking Randy ran ahead to Roy Bristow's. Roy had seen the smoke and was coming out the gate in his car. He picked up Dorothy and the other boys at the bridge and took them to his place. After getting cleaned up and into some borrowed clothes Ricky and Dorothy were taken to hospital where Ricky stayed, while Dorothy came home after having a cut above her eye stitched. Meanwhile the house and a log shed burned to the ground.
After living in a small house in the yard of Donald Kjenner for over a year our family moved to the Frog Lake Gospel Mission manse where two more fires occurred. On a dry, windy day in May 1972 a fire started in the yard, supposedly caused by the sun shining through a broken bottle in the dry grass. It burned around the church and set the roof on the old log (Robinson) house on fire. This fire, however, was brought under control with the help of neighbors before it could do any more damage. The third fire occurred a few weeks later and was caused by a faulty extension cord which was being used to heat water in the washing machine in the porch. Dorothy was in an upstairs bedroom and smelled the smoke. The wall, ceiling and a boy's coat were on fire. Dorothy and the boys were able to extinguish this fire with water.
