Now that we are in the holiday season, it’s time for a
feel-good story! The thing about feel-good stories, though, is that they often
have a very sad beginning and this one is no exception. This is the story of
one-time Fairfax resident Mary Engel.
Mary Elizabeth Engel was born on May 29, 1919 to Joseph
and Theresa Engel, Hungarian immigrants. When Mary was a toddler, she and her
father were in the basement of their home when she reached up on a table and a small
container of acid fell and splashed in her right eye, causing serious damage.
Because her parents couldn’t afford surgery, Mary’s eye socket was essentially
sown shut.
I haven’t been able to determine exactly when the Engel
family moved to Fairfax, but by the time of the 1930 federal census, they were
residing on Hawthorne Avenue, where they lived until 1940.
On the morning of December 3, 1936, 17-year-old Mary was
working as a babysitter for the three sons of George and Hortense
Schlechty, who lived a couple of blocks away on Germania. Mary and the three
little boys were in the kitchen of the Schlechty home. Five-year-old Paul and
three-year-old Richard were getting dressed there because of the warmth from the
gas stove. Paul was talking about the pictures he would be cutting out in
kindergarten that afternoon. 23-month-old Charles was on the other side of the
kitchen, laughing and playing in his bed.
The gas stove suddenly exploded. Mary grabbed Paul and
Richard, who were closest to her, and rushed them outside to safety. She
screamed for help and tried to reenter the house to rescue Charles. The flames
from the kitchen door drove her back. She tried to enter through the front door
and discovered that the fire had spread throughout the house. Neighbors tried
to aid in the rescue, to no avail.
Paul and Richard were in the street yelling for their
mother. The Cincinnati Fire Department responded and extinguished the fire and
recovered the body of Charles Carlton Schlechty, who died from third- and
fourth-degree burns, just two weeks shy of his second birthday. A fire marshal
on the scene said it was one of the hottest fires he had ever experienced. The
cause of the explosion was undetermined.
Mary Engel sustained burns on her right hand and arm. She
was treated by a physician, then sent home. While neighbors hailed Mary as a
hero, she was at home in her mother’s arms sobbing, “Charles. Oh, the poor
baby!”
Mary Engel after the fire, Cincinnati Enquirer, December 30,1936
In 1936, radio was the center of at-home entertainment
and Kate Smith was once described as “The First Lady of Radio.” These days,
most of us don’t know much about radio history, but you may recognize Kate
Smith as the singer who introduced “God Bless America” to the United States in
1938. Let’s just say she that she was a big deal in 1936.
Kate Smith, accessed from katesmith.org
Ms. Smith was having a contest on her national radio
program to present the Kate Smith Award for Unusual Heroism. There would be three
nominees with the first prize winner receiving $500 and the runners-up each receiving $100. Fairfax resident Lillian Crain, who didn’t know Mary Engel
prior to the fire, and the Cincinnati Post Promotion Department
submitted Mary’s name for the award. Mary was chosen as one of the nominees.
The nominees’ stories would be dramatized on-air on Christmas Eve. The award would given based on listener votes
and the winner would be brought to New York City on New Year’s Eve to receive
the award and a $500 check from Kate Smith.
Mrs. Crain and the Post set out to garner votes.
They even recruited Cincinnati Mayor Russell Wilson, who was quoted as saying, "I'm
in favor of Miss Engel getting the money. All Cincinnati should vote for
her."
Excitement was building at the Engel home. A Cincinnati
Post reporter interviewed Mary’s mother Theresa as she cleaned her house
before the Christmas Eve broadcast. She said, "[T]his money is only to be
for Mary. When she was a baby, just 18 months, she hurt her eye. The money will
go for an operation on her eye. We wanted to have it done before . . . but we
haven't had much luck, with the children being sick, and this and that coming
up to take up all that Joe earned. But now Mary can have her eye operated on.
Oh, it's a fine Christmas for us . . . a fine Christmas."
On December 29, 1936, the Cincinnati Enquirer
received a telegram from the awards committee in New York that Mary Engel was
the winner of the award. She would be taken to New York City to make a radio
appearance on Kate Smith’s show on New Year’s Eve and receive the $500 award.
After her radio appearance, Mary’s name didn’t appear in
the newspapers again for several months. In May 1937, the Enquirer
reported that Mary had surgery involving removal of her damaged eye and a skin
graft. The article said that an artificial eye would later be placed. That was the last time she was mentioned in the newspapers until her obituary was printed decades later.
Probably my biggest frustration as an amateur genealogist
(and even more amateur historian), is not being able to put all of the pieces
together. I might be able to find demographic information, public records, and
occasional stories in newspapers or books, but not enough to give me a full
sense of a person. I’m happy to report that this wasn’t the case with Mary
Engel.
I searched for information about Mary on Ancestry.com and
found a photograph of her, presumably when she was in her 20s. After seeing the
heartbreaking picture of Mary taken immediately after the fire, I was glad to
see her smiling face in this photo:
Mary Engel, accessed on Ancestry.com, courtesy of Christina Morgan
I contacted Christina Morgan, who had posted this
picture, and asked her permission to use the photo on this blog. I learned that
Christina is Mary Engel’s great-niece.
Christina told me that Mary never felt that she was
deserving of the recognition or money she received for rescuing the Schlechty
boys because she felt it was the right thing to do. Because Mary’s eye socket
was closed after her injury as a toddler, it was still the size of a small
child’s when it was reopened. She
received a prosthetic eye and special glasses with the damaged side magnified
to make it appear symmetrical to her other eye. She chose never to get a driver’s
license because she feared she might be at risk of injuring someone because she
only had one eye.
When Mary was 20, her mother Theresa died from leukemia.
Mary’s sister Theresa (Christina’s grandmother) was only 12 at the time and
Mary helped take care of her. Mary worked at Strietmann Biscuit Company (later
Keebler, now Kellogg’s) in Mariemont until she retired.
Mary didn’t have children of her own, but helped Theresa,
who was a single parent, raise her five children. She enjoyed writing novels,
though she never published one. Mary had retired by the time Christina was
born, so she watched her from the time she was a very young child until she
started school. She liked to dance and would dance around the living room to
entertain Christina. They became very close and Christina would often visit and
spend time with her even after she had started school. She remembers Mary as a
very caring person.
Mary lived with her sister Theresa until she passed away
on December 13, 1996 at the age of 77. She left behind a legacy of heroism for saving two scared little boys, and love for the family she cared for.
Sources
Cincinnati Enquirer, various dates, December 4, 1936 to December 15, 1996
Cincinnati Post, various dates, December 3, 1936 to January 4, 1937
KateSmith.org
"Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XZHQ-256 : 8 March 2021), Charles Carlton Schlechty, 03 Dec 1936; citing Ohio, reference fn 77034; FHL microfilm 2,022,735.
"Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X8WH-HS6 : 8 March 2021), Theresa Engel, 28 Feb 1939; citing Cincinnati City, Hamilton Co, Ohio, reference fn 10277; FHL microfilm 2,023,677.
