The Levan Building in Altoona was severely damaged in a six-hour fire last Tuesday night. Property damage was in the vicinity of $100,000 and in addition; the conflagraton <sic> took a tolal <sic> of two dead and five injured.
The blaze was discovered in the basement of a shoe store about 6:30 o'clock p. m., and two alarms were sounded. Firemen arrived on the scene promptly in answer to the alarms and were on duty until after midnight. Traffic was generally in a snarled condition and was considerably delayed by blocked-off streets and the fier-figbting <sic> equipment.
Two elderly persons were trapped in their rooms and died of suffocation. Four firemen were injured and given hospital treatment.
The dead included Mrs. Minnie Brubaker, aged 69, who was pronounced dead upon arrival at the Altoona Hospital; and John Hammond, 68, who died at the Mercy Hospital as a result of inhaling flames and suffocation.
Firemen injured included Chief Paul Amheised, who suffered from a back injury received in a fall. Donald Brinkley, fireman, was admitted to the Altoona Hospital suffering a possible skull fracture. Captain G. R. Crouse, overcome by smoke, was treated at the Mercy Hospital. Thomas F. Tobin was admitted to the Altoona Hospital when overcome by smoke.
Stores and business establishments damaged included two stores in the building next door, where damage was confined to that done by the smoke; the Williams A Gossard Tobacco Shop on Eleventh street and the dispatch office of the trolley company.
Max Tarr, an employee of the shoe store, first detected smoke through the basement door, and when he opened the door, flames and smoke poured out. He said smoke was very dense and he was forced to leave the building.
Policemen were called to the scene and roped off eleventh street to hold back the crowds which gathered.
The fire spread swiftly through the building, and firemen fought stubbornly to check the advancing fire. Flames several times spread to adjoining buildings, but alertness on the part of the firemen prevented the flames from spreading further.
Officials of the firm which had been managing the Levan building, said that damage estimates were in the vicinity of $100,000. Several days time will be necessary before an accurate damage appraisal can be made.
Many local residents were in Altoona at the time of the fire, and not a few of them found it difficult to make their way homeward because of the necessity for rerouting traffic.
~ Bellwood Bulletin, 07-Feb-1946, Page 1, Columns 5 & 6
Daughter Sought Aged Woman For Two Hours During Blaze
A daughter of of Mrs. Minnie Myrtle Brubaker, who lost her life in the fire which swept the Levan building last night, spent two tragic hours trying to find her mother before she learned she was at the Altoona hospital.
Mrs. John Gebhart of 412 East Logan avenue sat in the damaged room that had been her mother's on the third floor of the building this morning. While her husband searched for her mother's effects in the wet litter of the room, she told the story of the evening.
A friend who lives in the business district saw the glow of the fire and called Mrs. Gebhart, knowing her mother was living in the Levan building. Mrs. Gebhart took a trolley and was forced to walk from Seventh street, because of the street car tie-up on the loop.
“I asked a policeman if everyone had been taken from the building,” Mrs. Gebhart said, “and he told me 'yes'. Then I tried to find my mother at the Philadelphia Drug store and at Williams & Gossard tobacco store, but no one could tell me what happened to her.
“I called the hospitals, but they said they didn't have any women among the patients they were treating from the fire. So I kept on looking. If I had known she was in the building, I would have asked the firemen to put a ladder up to her window in apartment No. 13.”
Finally after another call to the hospitals, attaches at the Altoona hospital told her that an elderly, little woman has been admitted. They asked her to come and identify the remains.
Mrs. Gebhart said that since her mother had been under physician's care she had been trying to have her come live with her and her husband, but the elderly woman preferred to maintain her own quarters in the Levan building.
Mrs. Brubaker was born on April 5, 1876, at Knobsville, Fulton county, the daughter of John and Isabel (Swayne) Myers. Her husband, the late John Brubaker, died nearly 40 years ago. She had been living in the Levan building for approximately 20 years.
She was employed at the Penn-Alto hotel for nearly 17 years, quitting service there about a year ago because of high blood pressure. She was a member of the Methodist church.
Surviving are four daughters, Mrs. Helen Gebhart, Mrs. Myrtle Yaekle of Hancock, Md., Miss Mary Brubaker of Charlestown, W. Va., and Mrs. Gertrude Cooper of Fort Littleton, Fulton county; two sisters, Mrs. Arthur Billow of Waynesboro, Pa., and Mrs. Annie Young of Houston, Tex., and 11 grandchildren.
Friends will be received at the Mauk & Yates funeral home after 7 o'clock this evening.
~ Altoona Mirror, 06-Feb-1946, Page 1 Columns 4 & 5, and Page 4, Column 6.
You can visit the memorial page for Mrs. Minnie Myrtle [Myers] Brubaker.
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