For the better part of twenty years, the windows remained boarded up. A trio of third-floor apartments sat empty for all those years, the events that led to their closure too tragic to contemplate.
Retired Barrie fire chief Jack McAllister recalls the night of Jan. 18, 1964 all too well. He told me that firefighters always have trouble with these older buildings, with their numerous false ceilings, alterations and such, and that the old Bothwell Block at 76/80 Dunlop St. E. was no exception.
In early 1964, the ground floor was occupied by two businesses, longtime resident Reeves Jewelers and more recent arrival The Pied Piper Shop, a children’s department store.
The second and third floor, given the address of 78 Dunlop St. E., were divided into apartments.
At that time, Mary Dault was listed as the tenant of Apartment 1 on the second floor with Donald Ferguson as her neighbour in Number 2. Above them were three more apartments. Raymond Plant lived in Apartment 3, Lorne Guest rented Number 4 while Apartment 5 was occupied by John Wilson.
Lorne Guest had been subletting his tiny lake-facing apartment to the Duff family that winter. Keith and Patsy Duff were the parents of six energetic children including Mike age 10, Danny 9, Douglas 7, Susan 5, Timmy 4, and 16-month-old Sandra. However, Mr. and Mrs. Duff had separated and Keith had recently rented a room in a house on High Street.
On the night in question, Patsy Duff had decided to go to Bradford to see some friends. Her estranged husband, a cab driver with Valley Taxi, was working that night. Patsy enlisted a male acquaintance, Leo Stead, who lived nearby at the Simcoe Hotel, to babysit that evening.
The first hint of trouble came just before 11 p.m. that Saturday when Ray Plant and his guest, Patrick Gusway, suddenly awoke and recognized the smell of smoke. Plant dashed to the Queen’s Hotel to call for help while Gusway banged on doors to alert the other tenants of 78 Dunlop St. E.
Only Mike and Danny came out of Apartment 4. They too had smelled smoke and tried to wake the other people in their apartment, but had no luck and wisely fled. They were taken first to the police station, and later to the home of Salvation Army Captain Randall, as firefighters raced to control the scene.
As the firemen arrived, great orange flames curled out of the third-floor windows. The fire crew began to pour water onto the inferno and, by 11:30, the city’s new ladder truck had arrived allowing access to the burning apartment. Firemen began to toss scorched mattresses out the front window of the Duff apartment.
On the street below, a crowd was waiting for news. A fleet of ambulances stood by to receive casualties and whisk them to the hospital. The Barrie Examiner of Jan. 20, 1964 described the sombre scene.
“By 11:40, the fire was extinguished and Barrie realized that its worst tragedy in many years had just occurred.”
The writer went on to say that, “Only the chugging of the pumps and the roar of the jets of water could be heard as the stretchers were placed in the ambulances. The crowd of about two hundred persons was suddenly hushed.”
The destination was not to be Royal Victoria Hospital but instead Jennett’s Funeral Home.
The firemen had found Leo Stead and four of the Duff children in the living room, all of them overcome by the smoke and heat of the fire. Danny and Mike later told authorities that their brother, Douglas, had been seen playing with a cigarette lighter and attempting to light some curtains on fire. Sadly, he seems to have succeeded.
The Queen’s Hotel took in the displaced tenants and the Salvation Army clothed and fed them. The second-floor units were heavily water damaged while the ones on the third floor were completely destroyed by the fire. Also ruined was 80 per cent of the Pied Piper’s stock.
Twenty-four hours after the blaze, water was still pouring from the ceiling of the Pied Piper Shop. Mr. McNie, owner of the store, estimated his losses at $50,000. He reopened, but left the location within two years. McNie’s vacated venue was next occupied by an Eaton’s outlet, which had been displaced by yet another fire that destroyed a building a few doors east on Dunlop Street.
