DURYEE, Kermit Conrad 1940-1943

DURYEE

Posted By: Diane M Scott (email)
Date: 12/11/2011 at 09:30:59

KERMIT CONRAD DURYEE – July 13, 1940 – September 22, 1943

2 MCINTIRE CHILDREN DIE AS BARN IS DESTROYED BY BLAZE
MOTHER’S FACE SEARED AS SHE MAKES FUTILE ATTEMPT AT RESCUE

McIntire – Frantic efforts by a mother to rescue her 2 small children from a burning barn were fruitless at the Kenneth Duryee farm, 3 miles northeast of here Wednesday noon and both died as the building burned to the round.

Kermit Conrad Duryee, 3, and his brother, Delbert Wayne Duryee, 4, were playing I an oats bin in the barn shortly before noon when their mother looked out the window of the home and saw smoke pouring from the barn windows.

She rushed to the barn door and threw it open only to be met by a blast of smoke and flames which flashed more furiously as they were fed by oxygen from the open door, according to Dr. G. E. Krepelka, Osage, Mitchell County Coroner, who investigated the tragedy.

Spurred by the cries of the two tots imprisoned by the flames, the mother wrapped herself in blankets and tried to reach them but was driven back by the flames, he related.

She then ran to the rear of the barn and was boosted to the window of the granary, about 7 feet from the ground, by her father-in-law. But when she opened the window flames again burst out searing her face.

The father who had been working in the field the mother and 4 other children stood helplessly by while the barn burned to the ground. The McIntire fire department which had been called was unable to accomplish anything against the fire which had gained too much headway before it arrived.

The bodies were recovered about 3 o’clock in the afternoon the coroner said, but were burned beyond recognition. He pronounced the cause of death as suffocation.

Cause of the fire could not be determined. The mother said that the 2 boys had been in the house only a few minutes before she discovered the fire.

Mason City Globe Gazette, September 23, 1943