Mill Street Fire Not Set — Radice
No suspicious origin has been attached to yesterday morning’s fire which gutted a Mill Street building and killed a woman lodger, police said today.
Chief Joseph A. Radice said the area where the fire started was the office of the Radio Shack at 7 Mill St., but the cause has not yet been established. Investigators have eliminated the oil furnace below the office as a possible source.
Trooper Joseph E. Godin of the state fire marshal’s office was here yesterday for an inspection with local police. Radice said the building is a total loss and might have to be torn down.
The victim of asphyxiation in the fire was Mrs. Anna K. Staunton, 57, of 9 Mill St., who roomed on the second floor. Another lodger, James F. O’Brien, 59, suffered from smoke inhalation and is still at Newport Hospital. He was reported in good condition today.
Mrs. Staunton, a restaurant employe and onetime practical nurse, was born in Ireland, a daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. John Keating. He [sic] had lived here about 36 years.
She leaves her husband, Patrick J. Staunton of New York, from whom she was separated; a brother, Barney, and a sister, Mary in Ireland, and a nephew.
The funeral will be conducted from the Edenbach Funeral Home to St. Mary’s Church for a solemn high mass at 9 a.m. Burial will be in St. Columba’s Cemetery.
Source: Mill Street Fire Not Set — Radice, Newport Daily News, Newport, Rhode Island, 6 May 1960, p. 2.