Driving by the Aftermath of a Tragedy

The last slide in a box of my great uncles slides in the Seattle, Washington area of 1966 shows the above aftermath of a house fire. On the slide in my great Uncle's handwriting is says, "Tragedy in Auburn - Mother, Father and 3 children die in house fire, one lived.)

For perhaps obvious reasons, it kind of caught me a bit and so using my old newspaper database, I soon pulled up the story.

On 20 June, 1966, Bobby Kerr and his family were living in the house when apparently a wooden table placed over the vent of a gas operated floor furnace caught fire and quickly set the house on fire. After the fire was put out, Bobby (28), a son Donald (4) and daughter Lisa (3) were found deceased in one of the bedrooms. The articles said son David (6) escaped through a small window but don't say the exits of his Bobby's wife Judith (23) or baby Lisa (18 months) who were only listed as being in critical condition at the Auburn hospital. 

The Kerr's had only bought the home three weeks earlier and promptly rented out a basement apartment to  James Mattson, wife and two children, 4 and 16 months, who were also in the apartment at the time but were able to escape safely.

I find older articles in newspapers, especially initial articles, to full of errors. I don't think there was as much emphasis on fact checking and integrity that there is these days so I read a few newspapers after the article to get clarification, especially since there were two "Lisa's" listed 18 months apart in age. As was later corrected, the three year old daughter that died in the fire was Linda, not Lisa. Lisa was not in critical condition at the hospital but in fact died en route. Son David was pushed through the small window to safety by his mother and though he survived, he did get some lacerations from the incident. Sadly, the mother never survived and passed away four days later, the day after the funerals of her husband and three children. The later article also corrected that the family had lived there for three years and not three weeks. 

Below is the house as it stands today, fixed up and back in use. I don't know the exact dates of my great uncle's western trip, only that the slides were mailed in July of 1966. Judging from the debris in front of the house and my uncle writing that the wife was dead, they must have passed along soon after June 24th when he snapped that picture. None of the local papers had a picture of the house with their articles so quite possibly, it could be one of the few pictures ever taken of the tragedy aftermath.