Restaurant owner saves family and friends from fire

            A century ago there were few people in our community who had telephones, and even if they did, there was no 911 emergency number to quickly call for help.  Even if there was, there was no emergency call center to react to your cry for help.

            There was no emergency medical service to call for a health crisis, just the local doctor.  There were no home or personal alert systems to notify volunteer firefighters of your need for their services.  Most fire companies relied on ringing bells or old locomotive wheels and other manual methods to alert them.

Zern's restaurant, formerly owned by George Roth, in the 400 block of Main St. in Pennsburg.  It was the scene of the heroic recues by Charles Zern during a fire on Jan. 6, 1022

            Relying on their own wits and where-with-all, people did what they had to do when an emergency arose.

            During a cold and snowy morning on January 6, 1922, Charles Zern and his family, visiting friends, and an employee were sound asleep in the rooms over the restaurant he owned in the 400 block of Main Street in Pennsburg.

            Around 1 a.m. Charles and his wife awoke to a room filled with dense smoke.  Charles discovered a fire roaring in the ceiling above the restaurant on the main floor.

            He immediately took his wife, five-year-old son, and one-year-old daughter down the stairs and on the porch of the building.  Mrs. Zern grabbed a few items of clothing and blankets on the way out to shield her family from the bitter 10-degree winter cold.

            Charles returned to the building to awaken two visitors who were asleep on the second floor.  The two young women, one of them physically handicapped, were visiting the Zerns.  Both were bewildered by the smoke and suffering the effects of breathing it.  The two were friends of the Zerns and had been staying in their home since the previous Wednesday.

            In their confusion, they resisted the attempts of Zern to get them out of the building.  Thinking he was a burglar, they struggled with him until he finally resorted to carrying them out of the building where the fresh air revived them.

            An employee of Zern's, M. E. Spangler, also lived in another room above the restaurant and was able to evacuate the building on his own.

.           Charles then returned to the second floor of the burning building in search of his father, 76-year-old veteran auctioneer Henry Zern.  He, too, was suffering the effects of breathing the deadly smoke.  Charles guided his father outside as well, completing his rescue of all that were in harm's way.

            Charles took all the evacuees across Main Street to the home of Henry Moyer for safety.  Doctors W. H. Hunsberger and J. A. Klotz were summoned to the Moyer residence to care for the victims.

The volunteers of the Pennsburg Fire Company, using their 1919 Velie fire engine, had the fire under control in 30 minutes.  From left, volunteers Clarence Welker, Herbert Kneule, and Chief William Snyder.

            The swift north wind was fanning the flames as Charles ran about a half block to the firehouse to ring the alarm bell in the building's tower.  Upon arrival, he realized he lost his keys to the firehouse. 

            Fortunately, Spangler informed another neighbor, Ray Hammon, of the fire.  Hammon quickly ran two blocks west to the Perkiomen Trunk and Bag factory where a secondary alarm system was previously established with the night-watchmen who would sound deafening blasts from the factory's steam whistle to alert volunteer firefighters.

            The blasts of the steam whistle were sounding as Charles Zern returned to the burning building.

            The volunteers of the Pennsburg Fire Company arrived quickly with their 1919 Velie fire engine, their first piece of motorized apparatus.  Firefighters quickly attached a hose line to a hydrant in front of the Hevener and Shelly Department Store at Main Street and Quakertown Avenue to feed the 350 gallon-per-minute pump on their fire engine. 

            The intense cold and driving snow made battling the blaze a frozen challenge.  Operating hand-held hose lines and playing streams of water into the first floor of the building from the front and back, firefighters were quickly able to knock down the blaze.

            The fire was declared under control in 30 minutes.

            It was the first time the volunteers used their new smoke masks and according to Chief William Snyder they proved to be a "practical value" in fighting the fire,

            According to a news account, practically everything in the building was destroyed by fire or water.  Zern purchased the building and restaurant from George Roth just two years prior to the fire.  Prior to that Charles Zern operated a grocery store in Boyertown, where he resided.

            The fire was only a temporary setback for the restaurant on Main Street.  It survived another 48 years at that location, under Zern and other owners, until it succumbed to the modern era and became the site of a bank parking lot and ATM.

            People whine about things they could never do without today but throughout history we learn of people who got the job done, and more, with what they had at the time.

            Have you ever forgotten your cell phone and felt the gripping need to return home and retrieve it before you continued your short trip to the nearby store?