Booker C. Olden died attempting to save Wendell T. and Darlene E. Turner from burning, Nashville, Tennessee, December 6, 1962. Fire broke out in the living room of a one-story frame dwelling after the mother of Wendell, 2, and Darlene, 1, had left them with her other two children in the bedroom and gone to a nearby store. Noticing smoke issuing from the living room windows, Olden, 33, laborer, ran to the store and informed the mother, who screamed that her children were inside. Olden and the mother ran to the dwelling, which was filled with dense smoke, and entered the living room. They went into the bedroom, where heat was intense. The smoke caused them to cough. The mother probed the bed and picked up two of the children. Although she could not see Wendell and Darlene, she told Olden she thought they were on the bed. Olden said he would get them and told the mother to leave. She left with the other two children as flames in the living room spread to within two feet of the bedroom door. The mother ran to a near by dwelling, telephoned firemen, and then returned to outside the bedroom window, reaching it as Olden broke the glass from inside the room. Flames issued through the opening, singeing the mother’s hair. She shouted for Olden to get out. Olden turned from the window and disappeared in the dense smoke. Soon afterward the mother heard him scream. By then most of the dwelling was afire. Firemen arrived and extinguished the flames, leaving only ruins in which the bodies of Wendell, Darlene, and Olden were.
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