Family That Lost Home In Explosion Moving Into New Residence

Family That Lost Home In Explosion Moving Into New Residence

A University professor whose home was destroyed last May in an explosion and fire plans to move his family into a house on Ferdon Rd. this month.

Karl F. Guthe, assistant professor of zoology, his wife, Mrs. Lucy Guthe, and their three children are scheduled to move into a house at 1407 Ferdon Rd. in a few weeks.

Since May 11, when the Guthe home at 845 Brookwood PI. was leveled by a gas explosion and fire at the height of a storm, the family has been living in a rented home at 501 W. Hoover St. The ruins of their former home are still lying on the lot at Brookwood PI.

Prof. Guthe has sold the lot to a local builder who plans to erect a small apartment house on the site.

Residents of the Brookwood PI. area still marvel that no one was injured when gas fumes seeping from a broken main in front of the Guthe home were ignited and caused an explosion which rocked the neighborhood. The house was almost immediately enveloped in towering sheets of flame and John L. Patoros, 26, an employe of the Michigan Consolidated Gas Co. barely escaped serious injury. Patoros was walking toward the rear of the house searching for the gas leak when the explosion occurred.

Mrs. Guthe left the house only

minutes before at the order of Patoros.

The gas leak developed after high winds which swept through the section knocked over a large tree directly in front of the Guthe home. The huge roots of the tree broke the gas line.

The storm which struck violently at the southeast section of Ann Arbor that day was termed a “line squall” by weather observers although many persons believed the high winds and rains were part of a tornado.