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MEMOIR BAG Memoirs of Life at the Roedde House: The Christmas Fire (back to Memoir Bag)
I 'll tell you the story about the most frightening Christmas ever at the Roedde House. The year was 1913. I was only three years old at the time, but my family still talks of the event.
Every Christmas, we would set up and decorate a large Christmas tree by the window in the dining room. Along with the delicate ornaments, the tree would be adorned with lit candles attached to the branches by clips. Just as the family was sitting down to dinner on the 12th of January, the tree, a Balsam as usual, caught fire and fell burning to the floor. My family tried to extinguish the flames with buckets of water from the kitchen, until the fire engine from No. 6 Firehouse on nearby Nelson Street arrived, in time to save the house. 
Grandpa and Grandma had to rebuild the dining room, and they decorated it in the latest style. But if you look very carefully, you can still see the some of the smoke damage left as tell tale marks on the walls by the window. The event event made it into the local news! Here's what one newspaper said:
Flames started on Christmas Tree in Home of Mr. G. A. Roedde. Fire last evening almost ruined the residence of Mr. G. A. Roedde at 1415 Barclay street. In some mysterious manner a Christmas tree which had been standing in the drawing-room for two weeks and was very dry, caught fire and in a few minutes the room was a mass of flames. Five rooms of the house were almost completely gutted and the rest of the place was so damaged by water and smoke as to render it uninhabitable. The loss has not yet been fully estimated by Mr. Roedde but it will run into several thousand dollars. The house was fully protected by insurance.
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Part of the dining room was ruined - the paneling on the walls was burned, and much of the furniture and china were destroyed, but thankfully no one was hurt! 
