Maryville, MI Deadly Gas Fumes, Dec 1931

SIX CHILDREN ARE ASPHYXIATED BY GAS STOVE FUMES.

BODIES OF McCLURE FAMILY FOUND BY MOTHER ON KITCHEN FLOOR.

Maryville, Mich., Jan. 1. -- Six children are dead today because four-year-old PHYLLIS McCLURE tried to cook a New Year's dinner on her working mother's gas stove, for her rag doll.
MRS. STEVE McCLURE, mother of four of the young victims, discovered the tragedy late New Year's eve, when she returned home from working at a salt company factory to find the six bodies scattered in confusion on the kitchen floor of her modest little home here.
The dead were OLIVE, 9; RAYFIELD, 7; PHYLLIS, 4 and ROLLIN McCLURE, 2, and MARTHA, 16, and SHIRLEY EARL, 10.
From the positions of the bodies, Coroner Albert A. Falk of Port Huron, six miles from here, believed that PHYLLIS had gone into the kitchen to "cook" a dinner for her rag doll. She turned on four gas jets and went to a corner of the room to adjust the doll, where she collapsed.
Most of the other children either were in the room or came there later and were overcome by the fumes.
MARTHA EARL, who with her sister had been taken in by her aunt, MRS. McCLURE, to watch out for the others, fell beside the gas stove. First the younger, then MARTHA, apparently, had made efforts to stop the gas flow.

Daily News Huntingdon Pennsylvania 1932-01-01
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!