The Sodder Fire Research Paper

On December 24, 1945 tragedy struck small town Fayetteville, West Virginia. The Sodder’s home was burned to the ground and five of George and Jennie Sodders’ nine children were never seen again. For decades people have tried to solve the mysterious disappearances of those five children and what really happened that cold december night.

It was a normal Christmas Eve for the Sodder family. Except for the oldest son being away in the army, all nine of his siblings were enjoying the holidays at home with their parents, George and Jennie Sodder (Macgowan). When it was time for bed, five of the children asked for special permission to stay up and play with their new toys (Swancer). The children- Maurice(14), Martha(12), Louis(10), Jennie(8), and

The fire chief suggested the fire had completely cremated the bodies. The fire was attributed to faulty wiring and the children were officially declared dead due to “fire or suffocation” (Abbott).But george and Jennie weren’t satisfied with explanation. They wanted an in-depth investigation thoroughly explaining how faulty wiring could have caused the fire, when the lights were working perfectly during the fire (Macgowan). The Sodders began to find it suspicious that no bones were found in the rubble and no one had heard or seen the children screaming or trying to get out. They launched their own investigation and found some odd details that quickly put the case in a more sinister light (Swancer). An employee of a local crematorium told Jennie that bones remain after being burned for two hours at a very high temperature (Macgowan). A few months earlier, a strange man had come to the house looking for work. He meandered to the back of the house, pointed to the two fuse boxes, and said, ” This will cause a fire someday” (Abbott). Around the same time, an insurance salesman tried to sale the family life insurance but became angry when George refused. The older Sodder children claimed that they had seen a man parked along U.S. highway 21 intently watching the younger children. Another witness claimed to see someone steal the later during the fire and

As the years go by more questions are raised than answered about this mysterious case. Perhaps the biggest question though, is if the children really weren’t killed in the horrible fire all those years ago what happened to them? Sylvia Sodder, now 69, believes that her siblings were not killed in the fire. Whatever answers that may have been out there seemed to have vanished just like the Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty Sodder did all those years