Child Fatally Burned By Gasoline Explosion

Last Friday the five-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Carl R. Hansen, living near Kennard, was fatally burned by the explosion of a gasoline tank. The little boy and his brother, aged three years, were playing in the barn yard, having just returned from the house with a lunch. A large barrel which had been emptied of gasoline and the children were standing near it eating the lunch, when the end of the barrel was blown out and at once ignited, throwing flames over the older boy. The mother ran to his assistance and tried to smother the blaze. Failing in this she took him to the pump and covered him with water. The child was taken to Kennard where his injuries were dressed and he was then brought to the Blair Hospital, where he lived but a few hours.

The supposition is that the intense hear caused the tank, or barrel, which contained possibly a quart of gasoline, to explode. No other conclusion could be reached.

The funeral was held at the home on Sunday and the little form laid away in the cemetery in Kennard. The sorrowing parents and relatives have the sympathy of the entire community in the loss of their boy, the one great sorrow in their lives.

#2 Printed in the August 9, 1918 Enterprise

A barrel, containing a small quantity of gasoline, sitting in the yard where the sun’s rays had beaten upon it all day, exploded last Saturday evening with fatal results at the farm home of Carl Hansen, five miles southwest of this city. Little five year old Marvin and his brother were playing in the yard nearby when the explosion occurred, igniting Marvin’s clothing. His mother inside the house heard the explosion and, looking from a window, saw her darling in flames. She extinguished the flames as speedily as possible, but he was so seriously burned that he died at 8:30 the same evening after being brought to the Blair hospital. The parents of the little one have the heartfelt sympathy of the entire community in their bereavement.

~~~Obituaries courtesy of the Washington Genealogical Society. Newspaper clipping on file at the Blair Public Library.~~~ FindaGrave # 26385258