Three generations die in fire

Three generations of one family died in a fire that ripped through their home on Slade Road in Ridgeway Wednesday night. Neighbors who were close friends with the family say they will not soon be forgotten.

"They're great people,” said Mike Brown. “They were the kind of people if they had one shirt and you needed on they'd give it to you."

On Thursday morning, Mike brown said he still could not believe some of his closest neighbors and friends are gone.

"I can't put it into words how I feel about this,” he said. “It’a great loss – a tragic loss."

Four members in a family of seven lost their lives: April Hausler, 31, and her two children, Jimmy, 10, and Dawn, 8; as well as their grandmother, 56-year-old Anna Monagan. Brown says two more family members could have been killed if not for 14-year-old Donald Monagan.

"If Donald hadn't have woken up, I believe there would have been two tragedies more added,” he said. “Donald woke up, and he woke up his grandfather, and his grandfather tried to get everyone out of the house."

Donald and his grandfather, Jim, tried to save the rest of the family, but the flames spread to fast. Brown says he’ll remember those heroic efforts, and the memories he has of the rest of the family when he looks across the street where his neighbors used to live.

"It's just not easy to ‘remember’ them and see where their kids were born and watch them grow up, watch them play on the swing, and watch them get on the bus,” Brown said. “It's not going to be the same."

Brown says he contacted the father of the family, who was in Ohio working at the time, and told him his house was on fire around midnight Wednesday. Brown says he came home Thursday morning to find out what happened.

A memorial fund has been set up to help the family pay for funeral expenses. If you would like to donate, contact the local branch of the First Bank of Niagara and write a check in the name of “Monagan and Hausler Memorial Fund.”