Ceremony held for 8 children who died in 1954 fire

In 1954, eight siblings between the ages of 1 and 15 died in an Akwesasne fire. The children of Paul and Cecelia Cree had been sleeping when a fire erupted in their Cree Road-Phillips Road home. The tragedy is remembered to this day, and on the 57th anniversary this week, the Cree children’s surviving family decided to hold a feast in honor of their memory.

On Tuesday afternoon, March 15, a group of about 50 people gathered at the corner of Cree and Phillips Road where a memorial rests on the old foundation of the Cree homestead. The solemn group huddled and sang traditional Mohawk songs before releasing balloons into the sky. Newspapers reported in 1954 that a crowd of about that same size had stood helpless around the house as it burned and as Paul and Cecelia frantically ran from window to window yelling their children’s names.

Rose Marie Sunday, Cecelia’s eldest daughter, was 16 when the fire happened. She had taken a job as a nanny in Ogdensburg and wasn’t home at the time. Her brother Clyde, 13, had been staying up the road at his grandparents and wasn’t home either. The others slept in the four bedrooms upstairs, and one child was sleeping downstairs.

“There was no electricity at that time,” remembered Rose Marie. “We had a TV and people would come over and pay a nickel to watch. At 11, the TV went off and people would leave. Everybody left (that night) and nobody knew there was a kerosene leak.”

Sometime between 3:30 and 4 a.m. Paul awoke to a light shining from downstairs. He discovered that the wall near the oil heater was on fire, according to state police speaking with newspapers after the tragedy. Cecelia soon ran downstairs as well, and was told to open the front door so Paul could throw out the burning heater. When the door opened, the cold gust came in and fire quickly engulfed the house.

It was reported that Paul told police he “ran across the room with a pail of water and tried to get up the flaming staircase. Turned back, he ran outside and put a ladder up against a back window. He took an ax, climbed the ladder and began chopping at the window pane.”

Soon his hands were cut from glass and his axe fell inside the window. He and his wife began circling the house trying to wake their children up.

“My mother, she had a slip on,” said Rose Marie. “She ran down to the corner where they had a telephone.”

Without any local fire department at that time, it was hours before any help arrived. Police arrived at 6:05 a.m. By then it was too late. The Bombay Fire Department said they received a call at 7:45 a.m. to wet down the ruins.

All eight children home that night perished. They were Doris, 15, Raymond, 14, Francis, 11, Thomas, 10, Myrna, 8, Kenneth (Peanuts), 6, Joyce, 4 and Jennifer, 1.

“From there, the community swore that this would never happen again, and that was when the fire halls (Hogansburg-Akwesasne Volunteer Fire Department) were formed,” Rose Marie said.

The funeral for the children was attended by more than 1,000 people – the largest in the St. Regis Catholic Church’s history. A procession of more than 160 cars lead the way to the church.

Despite their devastation, Paul and Cecelia were supported by the entire community and from people miles and miles away. Clyde spoke to media in New York City about the tragedy and donations came from far and wide. The family received enough help to build a new home, and they began having more children and attempting to put their lives back together.

Cecelia lived to be in her 90s, and when the HAVFD opened their new Station #3 in Tsi Snaihne, she was the guest of honor.

“She had love for everybody,” said Rose Marie. “Everyone looked at her as a mother.”

When she was dying five years ago, Cecelia’s large family of children and grandchildren had meals every day and the small children would run around and play on her bed. She was never bothered.

“She would say, my medicines are here,” Rose Marie said.