The five victims of the worst fire in Niota's history were buried during a light drizzle Wednesday as members of the community started a fund drive to assist the survivors.
The four children and their grandmother, killed early Tuesday in their wood frame house at a Niota dairy farm just off Hwy. 68 near the Monroe County line, were buried in the Christianburg Church Cemetery.
The services for the children of Darryl and Carol Jackson-Julie, 10, Stephanie, 8, Heather, 6, and Darrell Herbert, 4-along with Mamie Lance, 70, lasted 20 minutes. Ministers from Sweetwater and the family's Union Grove church offered words of condolence.
The cause of the tragic fire is still undetermined, and remains under investigation by state fire marshall Charles Coatney.
It began shortly after 6 a.m. Tuesday in the single-story frame structure. Smoke and flames awoke 6 year old Brandy Jackson, who fled the home and went to a nearby barn and alerted her parents and two other dairymen.
Intense heat and smoke prevent rescue attempts by neighbors. When firemen extinguished the flames around 8:30 a.m., McMinn County Medical Examiner Dr. Bill Foree found the five bodies in beds.
Although just over a day elapsed from the time of the fire until the burial, word spread quickly throughout the community that the survivors had little money to begin with as tenant workers, and couldn't afford to pay funeral expenses.
A neighbor of the Jackson's said an association of Athens merchants called Smith Funeral Home and told the owner they would pay for arrangements.
Burial was in a church cemetery because the family received burial plots free, he said.
The four children and their grandmother, killed early Tuesday in their wood frame house at a Niota dairy farm just off Hwy. 68 near the Monroe County line, were buried in the Christianburg Church Cemetery.
The services for the children of Darryl and Carol Jackson-Julie, 10, Stephanie, 8, Heather, 6, and Darrell Herbert, 4-along with Mamie Lance, 70, lasted 20 minutes. Ministers from Sweetwater and the family's Union Grove church offered words of condolence.
The cause of the tragic fire is still undetermined, and remains under investigation by state fire marshall Charles Coatney.
It began shortly after 6 a.m. Tuesday in the single-story frame structure. Smoke and flames awoke 6 year old Brandy Jackson, who fled the home and went to a nearby barn and alerted her parents and two other dairymen.
Intense heat and smoke prevent rescue attempts by neighbors. When firemen extinguished the flames around 8:30 a.m., McMinn County Medical Examiner Dr. Bill Foree found the five bodies in beds.
Although just over a day elapsed from the time of the fire until the burial, word spread quickly throughout the community that the survivors had little money to begin with as tenant workers, and couldn't afford to pay funeral expenses.
A neighbor of the Jackson's said an association of Athens merchants called Smith Funeral Home and told the owner they would pay for arrangements.
Burial was in a church cemetery because the family received burial plots free, he said.
The five victims of the worst fire in Niota's history were buried during a light drizzle Wednesday as members of the community started a fund drive to assist the survivors.
The four children and their grandmother, killed early Tuesday in their wood frame house at a Niota dairy farm just off Hwy. 68 near the Monroe County line, were buried in the Christianburg Church Cemetery.
The services for the children of Darryl and Carol Jackson-Julie, 10, Stephanie, 8, Heather, 6, and Darrell Herbert, 4-along with Mamie Lance, 70, lasted 20 minutes. Ministers from Sweetwater and the family's Union Grove church offered words of condolence.
The cause of the tragic fire is still undetermined, and remains under investigation by state fire marshall Charles Coatney.
It began shortly after 6 a.m. Tuesday in the single-story frame structure. Smoke and flames awoke 6 year old Brandy Jackson, who fled the home and went to a nearby barn and alerted her parents and two other dairymen.
Intense heat and smoke prevent rescue attempts by neighbors. When firemen extinguished the flames around 8:30 a.m., McMinn County Medical Examiner Dr. Bill Foree found the five bodies in beds.
Although just over a day elapsed from the time of the fire until the burial, word spread quickly throughout the community that the survivors had little money to begin with as tenant workers, and couldn't afford to pay funeral expenses.
A neighbor of the Jackson's said an association of Athens merchants called Smith Funeral Home and told the owner they would pay for arrangements.
Burial was in a church cemetery because the family received burial plots free, he said.
The four children and their grandmother, killed early Tuesday in their wood frame house at a Niota dairy farm just off Hwy. 68 near the Monroe County line, were buried in the Christianburg Church Cemetery.
The services for the children of Darryl and Carol Jackson-Julie, 10, Stephanie, 8, Heather, 6, and Darrell Herbert, 4-along with Mamie Lance, 70, lasted 20 minutes. Ministers from Sweetwater and the family's Union Grove church offered words of condolence.
The cause of the tragic fire is still undetermined, and remains under investigation by state fire marshall Charles Coatney.
It began shortly after 6 a.m. Tuesday in the single-story frame structure. Smoke and flames awoke 6 year old Brandy Jackson, who fled the home and went to a nearby barn and alerted her parents and two other dairymen.
Intense heat and smoke prevent rescue attempts by neighbors. When firemen extinguished the flames around 8:30 a.m., McMinn County Medical Examiner Dr. Bill Foree found the five bodies in beds.
Although just over a day elapsed from the time of the fire until the burial, word spread quickly throughout the community that the survivors had little money to begin with as tenant workers, and couldn't afford to pay funeral expenses.
A neighbor of the Jackson's said an association of Athens merchants called Smith Funeral Home and told the owner they would pay for arrangements.
Burial was in a church cemetery because the family received burial plots free, he said.
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