Fire in Simsbury

One hundred of the 174 girls at smart Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Conn, sat supping one night last week in the school's big, square "Four Corners" dormitory. All at once there were uneasy stirrings. At a crisp command the girls arose, marched out on the lawn. While teachers called the roll they watched flames writhe and shoot through "Four Corners." It soon burned to the ground and with it the belongings of 40 of the younger Walker girls--green wool and cotton uniforms, white crepe de chine evening dresses, riding habits. They had no place to sleep; nor did 80 other girls. For two days prior "Beaverbrook," a stately brick building that contained classrooms, offices, dining room, sleeping quarters, had been gutted by a brisk, suspiciously sudden fire. Most of Miss Walker's girls had to be put up that night at an inn, a country club, in homes in Simsbury and Farmington.

Daughters of Jays, Biddies, Iselins, Pinchots and Cheneys have gone to Miss Walker's strict, impersonal, well-regulated school. Day after the second fire, family automobiles rolled into Simsbury to fetch the girls home. But Dr. Earle Terry Smith, husband of Founder Ethel Walker. announced that he had obtained the use of the country club on Fisher's Island off New London, that the school would carry on there until June. Meantime State police and constables guarded the school property. The fires (loss $300,000) had both been started in windward corners of basements. Not only that: within the past few weeks five other fires had been discovered, snuffed out in time. Clearly it was arson, with suspicion pointing at a discharged school employe.

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