Kalvig, Alice Marie (abt 1958 - 1961)

KALVIG, KRAMER, BAKKER

Posted By: Debbie Greenfield (email)
Date: 2/16/2015 at 12:58:39

Daily Freeman Journal, Monday, February 20, 1961

Three Are Dead in Fire at Blairsburg

Flames Destroy Kramer Garage And Residence

Three persons are dead and two others are hospitalized with burns in the wake of a roaring fire that demolished the Harold Kramer garage, residence and truckers' bunkhouse at Blairsburg early Sunday morning.

Killed in the fire which broke out about 4 a.m. Sunday were:

Alice Kalvig, 3, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Kalvig of Blairsburg and granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Kramer.

Kenneth McCollough, 15, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert McCollough of Blairsburg, formerly of Webster City, and,

Kenneth Robert Davis, 27, Blairsburg, an employee at the Kramer garage, formerly of Benton Harbor, Mich.

The McCollough youth was pulled from the burning 132 by 40-foot steel building shortly after the blaze started but he died a few minutes later in the Kramer cafe just south of the garage building.

Bodies of the Kalvig girl and Davis were found by firemen who sifted through the still smoldering wreckage of the building after the flames were put out.

Receiving treatment at the Hamilton county hospital for burns received in the fire are Denny Kramer, 16, of Blairsburg, son of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Kramer and Carolyn Kalvig, 6, sister of Alice Kalvig.

Harold Kramer said that he was awakened about 4 a.m. when the building was already filled with smoke.

He said he ran upstairs and found flames all around a bed in which Kenneth McCollough was sleeping. "I'm sure the fire was started by a burning cigaret near that bed," Kramer told the Daily Freeman-Journal.

Denny Kramer was awakened by the fire and started to carry six-year-old Carolyn Kalvig from the building. The Kramer youth said he was being overcome by the smoke, so when he reached the top of the stairs he threw Carolyn down the stairs and plunged after her. Both got out of the building after being burned as they ran through the flames.

Larry Kramer, 17, and Mervin Kramer, 19, sons of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Kramer, and Darrell Hetland, a friend of the Kramer boys, were also sleeping upstairs.

When awakened by the fire they escaped by literally pushing their way through a wall of their room into a storeroom from which a stairway led to the garage on the first floor.

Two truck operators, Curtis Nickell of Milan, Mich., and Roy Widmeyer of West Bend, Wis., were others who escaped from the second floor of the burning building. Nickell said he crawled on his knees to the stairway because the smoke was so thick.

The three victims of the fire were also sleeping in rooms on the second floor of the building.

Mr. and Mrs. Harold Kramer, their daughter, Julie, and four or five truck operators were asleep on the first floor. They all got out of the building without difficulty.

The garage occupied the east end of the 132-foot building. The Kramer family occupied the center portion of the first floor and a lounge and a bedroom for truckers was at the west end of the building. Rooms for truckers and garage and cafe employees were on the second floor along with a storeroom.

Kramer said that while the fire was confined to the area around the McCollough boy's bed when he first got up, the flames spread rapidly when the doors were opened by people leaving the building.

By the time Blairsburg firemen arrived on the scene 15 minutes after the fire was discovered, the fire had spread through the building and had burst through the roof.

Webster City and Williams firemen also responded to the call to help keep the fire from spreading to a nearby cafe and the Kramer motel, west of the garage.

Robert McCollough, father of Kenneth McCollough, received minor burns when he went into the burning garage building to attempt to rescue his son. He was treated for his injuries at the Hamilton county hospital and was later released.

The McCollough and Kalvig families live in house trailers near the Kramer cafe.

Harold Kramer said the destruction of the building represented a loss of $30,000 to $40,000. The loss included about $5,000 worth of tires and oil stored in the garage, auto and truck repair tools, and all the furnishings in the Kramer home and in the rooms which were rented to truck operators.

The death toll might have been higher had two residents of the building not been home when the fire broke. Caroline Sherburne and George Leverton lived in the building but both were away at the time of the fire.

The building, a steel frame structure, was flattened by the fire which burned for more than three hours. Fireman, officers and highway patrolmen were unable to begin their search for the bodies until nearly 8:30 - more than four hours after the fire started.

Deputy State Fire Marshall Charlie Cornell of Des Moines arrived in Blairsburg late Sunday morning to begin an investigation in cooperation with Blairsburg Fire Chief Bernie Ferrell, Webster City Fire Chief Jack Patterson, Sheriff E. R. Lear and Dr. DeWayne Anderson of Stanhope, county medical examiner.

The fire marshall's investigation was to be continued today.

The ruined building at the intersection of Highways 20 and 69 at Blairsburg, attracted hundreds of curious spectators yesterday afternoon.

Funeral services for two of the victims of the Blairsburg fire have been scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

Funeral services for Alice Marie Kalvig, 3, will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Congregational church in Blairsburg with the Rev. Clark Crowell officiating and with burial in Graceland cemetery.

The body will be at the Foster funeral home until 11 o'clock Wednesday, when it will be taken to the church.

Alice Marie is survived by her parents and two sisters, Barbara, 8, and Carolyn, 6, the grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Kramer of Blairsburg, and Verne Kalvig of Dumont, and great-grandmothers, Mrs. Anna Bakker, Wellsburg, Iowa, Mrs. Carl Kalvig, Albert Lea, Minn., and Mrs. George Kramer of Steamboat Rock.

Alice Marie attended Sunday school at the Blairsburg Congregational church.

Funeral services will be held at Benton Harbor, Mich., for Kenneth Robert Davis, 27. Time and place of services have not yet been set.

Mr. Davis, who had been working at Blairsburg for about a month, is reportedly survived by four children, ranging in age from seven months to five years, and residing in Florida.