Frank A. Conlin
Harriet Lins
Address: Vacant
Old Address: 47 Shepard Avenue
Other names: Mrs. H. L. & Lin Davis (1920s), Lamalley Cottage (1912), George Lavalley (1929); DIS
Year built:
Other information: The house burned to the ground on July 6, 1979, and was not rebuilt. After that date, #47 was used to refer to the small house directly behind the house that burned, which had been designated "47 1/3".
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Friday, July 6, 1979
Mrs. Thomas McGinnis Dies in Fire
Two firemen injured slightly
By JAMES M. ODATO
SARANAC LAKE - A 63-year-old woman died early this morning in her burning kitchen during a blaze which destroyed the wooden home at 47 Shepard Ave.
Jeanette McGinnis, a life-long resident of this village, was taken out of the building at 6 a.m. — some four hours after the fire is believed to have started.
Mrs. McGinnis, who lived alone in the two-and-a-half story home, had been taken to General Hospital by the rescue squad at 6:24 p.m. Thursday. She was released at about 7:15 p.m. and went home. Her son, Wayne, said this morning he did not know why she had been to the hospital.
Thirty-five volunteer firemen rushed to the smoking building at 2:45 a.m. today. "It was pretty involved in fire by the time we got there," Deputy Fire Chief John Wamsganz said this morning.
Police Chief Gerald L. Oxford said the fire is not of suspicious origin and is still under investigation.
Wamsganz said the fire started in the rear left side of the first floor near the kitchen where Mrs. McGinnis' body was found. He estimated it started at about 2 a.m.
The fire was brought under control at about 6 a.m. Firefighters Mark VanNess and Robert Girard laid ladders over the burned out floor so that Franklin County Coroner Ronald Keough could get to the body.
The fire was discovered at about 2:30 a.m. today by police officers William Wallace and David Goff who were patrolling Church Street in a police cruiser.
The patrolmen smelted smoke and traced it to the Shepard Avenue home.
"They tried to get in to her, but there was too much smoke," Chief Oxford said this morning.
Two firefighters were injured when one fell on another. Visiting fire instructor George Provencher of Peru and Edmund Woodard of Saranac Lake were both treated and released at General Hospital.
Keough said Mrs. McGinnis died in the fire but was awaiting a pathologist's report before giving further information. Keough had tried to enter the burning building at 4 a.m. to recover the body but could not enter because of the smoke and flames.
Mrs. McGinnis was the wife of the late Thomas E. McGinnis. She is survived by two sons, Wayne McGinnis of Riverside Drive and Thomas McGinnis of Orlando, Fla.
At the scene this morning, Oxford said "They did a damn good job of containing the fire to this one building." The McGinnis house is some eight feet from a neighboring building.
"We were lucky there wasn't any wind," Wamsganz said.
