Winecoff Fire reader Mary Marsh has documented new details about the lives of some of the high achieving women who perished in the Winecoff fire. In a trilogy of articles, Marsh delves into their sorority and civic club connections. Marsh writes with authority about the sororities and reveals her appreciation for the active women, who's lives were in full stride, in the vivacious post World War II era. Her articles are here.
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Women of Achievement
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Legend of Devotion Revealed
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| Cliff Burtz Carried a Secret Burden |
Now it can be told. Cliff Burtz died in 2011. He was eighty-eight. He never married though he was considered a good catch. He had lovers. Kind and thoughtful women who would surely have considered making a life with Cliff -- one with wedding vows. But Cliff's willingness to give his heart in full had been shattered by the Winecoff fire and the searing, lifelong memory of a girl, Frances Thompson, age 17.
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| Frances Thompson's Senior Photo Remained on Burtz's Dresser For The Rest of His Life |
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| Cliff Burtz in Europe 1945 |
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| Frances Thompson, 17 |
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Firefighter Jim Smith Passes
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| Jim Smith |
Smith was born in Atlanta in 1920. In the early hours of December 7, 1946 he was on duty at Atlanta's fire station number twelve, on DeKalb Avenue on the city's east side when the first alarm was sounded.
Station twelve's engine company was first dispatched to station six and immediately from there to the Winecoff fire scene. "You could see it when you came across Edgewood Bridge. Coming up Edgewood you could see the fire, it was coming out the windows then," Smith said in 2011.
Upon arrival, Smith was ordered to evacuate the hotel's guests from the lower floors, down a darkened stairway which was partially obstructed by fire hoses and cascading water. "They were scared," he remembered. Once the guests who could be evacuated were downstairs, Smith joined the fire fight on the Peachtree Street side.
Additional equipment was needed there. Smith did the heavy lifting. "We'd had to park down there at the Lowes Grand Theater," said Smith. "I mostly remember running back and forth."
James Smith's brother, Charlie Smith from fire station four also fought the fire. In 2011, on the fire's sixty-fifth anniversary, James Smith returned to the scene of the fire. There he was honored by Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran.
Jim Smith, may he rest in peace.
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Pioneer Hotel Fire Re-Examined
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| Photo: gendisasters.com |
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Rare Postcard Acquired
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| Click To Enlarge |
This vintage Winecoff Hotel postcard, showing early Ford automobiles, was not used for long. Note the hotel's name is misspelled.
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'Til Death Do Us Part
Only a few hours later the Boschungs found themselves trapped in room 1208 with fire racing up through the building towards them. They fashioned a sheet rope in hopes of reaching a ladder four floors below. Mildred was knocked from the ladder when another woman fell from room 1008. Only Charles survived.
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| The Boschungs Were Married One Week Before The Winecoff Fire |
Their story is told on pages 52,53,134 and 224 of The Winecoff Fire: The Untold Story of America's Deadliest Hotel Fire.
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A Winecoff Poem
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| Chet Wallace |
My Love Lost
by Chet Wallace
My love made a trip.
She hoped to escape.
No bye from her lips.
No hand on my nape.
Destination was a city,
A Phoenix from the ashes.
That city went through pity,
None from her would trash it.
She made it to a hotel,
Winecoff was her name.
She made sure I not tell.
Infidelity was her aim.
She went to a tea room,
Francis Virginia was her name.
Her thought was to bloom,
A relationship just the same.
Her letter was written to me,
Telling what she did.
The man she went to see,
Unknown to me and hid.
The night was full of dread,
For fire was the cause.
Many asleep were dead,
Because of gamblin’ outlaws.
She died as others did,
No chance to avoid.
A trip that I forbid,
She surely enjoyed.
Now I’m without my love,
Never seen again.
She fit me like a glove,
My love lost, amen.
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Innovative Solutions
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Sixty-Seventh Anniversary Coverage
Atlanta public radio station WABE-FM has broadcast a story noting the sixty-seventh anniversary of the Winecoff Hotel fire. In a six minute radio piece Steve Goss interviews well known Atlanta historian Cliff Kuhn. Kuhn tells the story of the fire. To listen click here.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has published a remembrance of the fire including quotes from Winecoff Fire co-author Sam Heys. The article by Andy Johnston appeared in the December 3rd edition.
Mary Marsh has written a loving remembrance of Winecoff fire victim Freda Constangy. Read it here.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has published a remembrance of the fire including quotes from Winecoff Fire co-author Sam Heys. The article by Andy Johnston appeared in the December 3rd edition.
Mary Marsh has written a loving remembrance of Winecoff fire victim Freda Constangy. Read it here.
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Fire's Anniversary Ahead
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Maude Whiteman's Courage Recalled
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| Maude Whiteman |
Whiteman operated the Winecoff Hotel's cigar shop by day but had agreed to stay in the hotel overnight to assist the elderly wife of one of the hotel's co-lessors who was away on a hunting trip.
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| Unable to go down, some guests were pulled up to room 1612. |
Her quick and rational thinking had kept smoke from overtaking room 1612, the hotel's uppermost room on the Peachtree-Ellis Street corner. Said Whiteman, "I never lost my head for one moment. I put our predicament up to Almighty God."
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| Nero Pitman carries Esther Geele away from the fire scene. |
"She fell into my arms when we got her up and opened those big old eyes and said, 'God owns the world'," said Whiteman.
Whiteman was the stalwart against rising panic in room 1612 and the group she sheltered lived to tell about it.
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| Maude Whiteman is assisted away from the scene of America's deadliest hotel fire. |
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Rick Roberts
In 1946, then Private Roberts was summoned to the Winecoff Hotel fire on the first alarm. Using ladders and nets, he and his crew rescued many hotel guests from high windows along the Peachtree Street side of the 15 story building - at extreme peril to their own safety.
Roberts went on to serve a long and distinguished career in the Atlanta fire service.
Thirteen days before his passing, on the sixty-fifth anniversary of the Winecoff fire, Roberts and two other Winecoff firefighters returned to the hotel for a special luncheon. There they were honored personally by Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran and three of the fire's survivors.
"Rick" Roberts was ninety-four.
More here.
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New Survivor Photo Acquired
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| Anna & Edward W. Sherwood |
"I went to my bedroom (room 922) about 7:30 p.m. and retired, leaving a call for 8:00 a.m. I had intended to check out and leave Atlanta today. I am a light sleeper and I woke up at 3:30 a.m. hearing cries of 'fire' from the alley under my room. I opened the door but found the hall full of smoke, so I shut the door at once and plugged up the cracks with bed sheets.
"After a while the floor got so hot I could no longer stand on it. I opened a window and crawled out on the ledge. The heat from the room was so intense I managed to close the window while clinging to the edge. I could see dozens of persons from my floor and from floors above and below me also standing on window ledges. Every once in a while one of them would shriek and dive off.
"A woman was standing on a ledge next to mine. She kept crying that she was going to fall. She was just too far away for me to reach her. I pleaded with her to hang on, but it did no good. She plunged down.
"I was clinging there praying, and the heat was so intense it seemed I could not bear it another minute. Then from the office building across the alley, firemen pushed a ladder at me. They were above me and the ladder came down at about a 30 degree angle. I grabbed it and got it fixed to the ledge. Then I crawled upward across the alley to the office window."
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Ponce Press Article
The April 2014 issue of The Ponce Press features an article remembering the Winecoff Hotel fire. The Ponce Press is a monthly publication serving the well established in-town neighborhoods on Atlanta's East side including the city's most eclectic and interesting street, Ponce de Leon Avenue. The article by Bob Foreman is here.
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Striking Winecoff-Based Painting Sells Quickly
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| Emelda by June Johnston |
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| Emelda Reeves |
Mystery still surrounds her time at the Winecoff Hotel.
In the years following the fire and her near-miss with death, June Frazier Johnston became an award-winning artist. In 1999, still haunted by the uncertainty of her friend's death, she immortalized her grief in a painting she entitled simply, Emelda. The painting was eventually purchased by Sonya Swain of Watkinsville, Ga. Swain has now re-sold the painting to an as-yet undisclosed buyer.
The painting:
Artist: June Frazier Johnston
Title: Emelda
Materials: Acrylic/mixed media on textured board
Size: 37 x 51 inches with a 2 inch unpainted wooden frame
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Information On Navy Pilots Sought
Though that area of the hotel was burned, neither pilot was listed among the dead or injured. More than 95 percent of all other guests were accounted for during The Winecoff Fire book research.
If you can help us learn more about Winecoff Hotel guests H. J. Curtiss or G. J. Walton please contact allenbgoodwin@yahoo.com. We are interested in learning of their stories.
Information is still being sought about two Army soldiers, Capt. William C. Willard and Lt. Frank Johnson.
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Separated by Fire
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| Harold and Robert Irvin |
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Dickerson Family Photos Newly Acquired
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| Will, Bill, Mary and Mary Melinda Dickerson |
A bright future awaited Will and Mary Dickerson in post-war Georgia. Will, a Washington & Lee University graduate and a World War II veteran, worked as a lawyer for the Georgia Labor Department at the state capitol. He was a heroic figure in his hometown of Douglas, Ga. More here.
Mary was from a prominent Carterville, Ga. family. She'd attended the Florida State College for Women. The Dickerson family was staying at Atlanta's Winecoff Hotel while their new home was being built in Jonesboro, Ga. They all died of suffocation in room 1630 on the hotel's top floor. Their story is told on pages 111 and 112 of The Winecoff Fire: The Untold Story of America's Deadliest Hotel Fire.
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Funeral Photo Mystery Solved
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| Emelda Reeves died in the Winecoff fire |
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A Worthy Legacy
The Rome News-Tribune has published an article remembering the four teenaged boys from Rome, Georgia who perished in the Winecoff fire and traces the fire safety improvements the fire inspired. The article by Doug Walker, Winecoff fire in Atlanta 68 years ago prompted safety changes, is here.
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