SMALL FIRE COSTS THE LIVES OF THREE

Mother and Two Children, Locked In, Perish in an Early Morning Blaze.

BUSY DAY FOR FIREMEN

Three lives were lost early yesterday in a fire that burned out the interior of a four-room house in the rear of 2,103 Bergen Street, Brooklyn. The victims were a mother and her two small children. The damage was only $300.

The little cottage was the home of Jose Diaz. He was in fear of some Italians living in the four-story tenement in front, and warned his wife to be on her guard. For safety's sake he locked the door of the cottage on leaving for his work at an early hour.

Mrs. Rosa Rosenberger, who lives in the tenement facing the street, looked out of a rear window at an early hour and saw flames through the window of the little one-story house in the rear. She also thought she heard a faint scream. She hurried her grown son, Henry, out to investigate.

Finding the doors locked, and being unable to get in, he ran to the nearby Liberty Avenue Police Station. The policement[sic] sent in an alarm, and raced over to the Diaz home.

Policeman Donaldson and Murray forced their way through a door, and were groping around in the smoke when several firemen found them and carried them out. The fire was quickly put out.

In the kitchen the firemen found the lifeless bodies of Mrs. Diaz, her 4-year-old daughter Mercedes, and her 2-year-old daughter Esperanza. By the side of the kitchen stove was a burned mattress. The firemen supposed that the mother had placed it there so that the children could play and economize on fuel. They think the mattress caught fire from the stove, igniting the clothing of the children, and that the hysterical mother, failing to open a door at the first trial, ran back to them.

A toy fire engine was found on the floor by the remnant of the mattress. The shine of the horses and bright colors of the engine had been burned off, but the horses were still on the run to an imaginary fire they never reached. A real one got them first.

When the husband got home last night from work the police had to take him in charge for his own safety.

The New York Times, New York, NY 20 Jan 1909
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!