Emery L. McLendon saved Marvin A. and Maria E. McCay from burning, English Lake, Indiana, October 30, 1947. While Marvin, 15 months old, and his sister Maria, 3, were in a bedroom of their one-story frame house, McLendon, 28, telegrapher, saw smoke rising from the eaves. Although he was unfamiliar with the interior, he walked through an enclosed porch into a kitchen, where he met a man who had given up the search and who warned him not to go further. McLendon, guided by cries of the children, walked groping in dense smoke through the room into the bedroom. Embers were smoldering on the floor and on tbe cover of a bed. McLendon picked up Marvin and kneeled to take hold of Maria; but she started to crawl under the bed. Setting Marvin down, McLendon raised the bed and picked up Maria and then Marvin. Carrying the children, he bumped against a wall before he located the bedroom door, and then continued to the outside, the smoke causing him to cough and his eyes to water. Four minutes later flames broke through the roof, and in the next fifteen minutes the house was destroyed. McLendon suffered nausea, but neither he nor the children were burned. 41229-3541
41229 – 3541
41229-3541