Obituary from The Wrangell Sentinel - Friday, October 29, 1948. ERMA AXBERG BURNS TO DEATH IN FIRE WHICH DESTROYS FELLER HOME. Erma Axberg, 17, granddaughter of Otto Feller, Sr., burned to death early last Wednesday morning in a fire which destroyed the Feller home. Other persons in the house narrowly escaped with their lives, and Mrs. John Feller, who jumped from a flaming second-story window, is still in Bishop Rowe hospital where she was taken to be treated for burns. Otto Feller Sr., who was also taken to the hospital, was released yesterday. He suffered a cut hand and arm. Telling of the tragedy which took his granddaughter's life, Mr. Feller said at about 2 a. m., he had made a lunch of coco and a sandwich, as was his habit, before going to bed. "I sat in the kitchen and ate it." Mr. Feller said, "and everything was fine." He said he then went to bed in a downstairs bedroom and two hours later awoke to find the room filled with smoke. "The first thing I did was to yell 'fire!' as loud as I could. The smoke was so thick I couldn't see my shoes right beside the bed." Mr. Feller said he aroused his son, Otto, sleeping on a couch in the living room and then he ran upstairs to waken his granddaughter and daughter-in-law, Mrs. John Feller. "I heard Erma call 'Grandpa, Grandpa!' and I thought she was coming. Just then the whole place exploded," Mr. Feller said, "there were flames in every part of the house at once. I ran outside to get a ladder so the girls could get down, but I didn't have time. When I got around to the window Caroline (Mrs. Feller) was leaning out the window and her clothes were a mass of flames. I told her to jump, and leaned over in order to break her fall with my back. Then I waited for Erma but she didn't come. I had thought she was right behind Caroline." It was later determined that Erma must have become confused in the flame-filled house and gone back into the rear of the house instead of the front. Her body was found in a rear bedroom face down on the floor. She had wrapped bedding around her head, evidently to protect herself from the flames and smoke. Cause of the fire was said to have been from a defective stove which filled the house with fumes which later exploded. Funeral services for Erma will be held from the Presbyterian church on arrival of Christine Feller, with the Rev. G. C. Crowell officiating. Erma was born in Wrangell on December 8, and would have been 18 years old on her next birthday. She attended school here and also attended Sheldon Jackson school at Sitka. She is survived by a half-brother and half-sister, Walter and Helen John at Wrangell Institute, beside her grandfather and his family, Otto, John, Tommy and Christine Feller. Christine Feller is expected to arrive here by plane today from Seattle where she has been the past month. Burial will take place at Wrangell Memorial Cemetery.