There wasn’t much left of the house on Oliver Avenue in Worthington after a fire burned through it.
June Wiese, 85, died in the blaze. Her grandson, Dave Knigge, says when his doorbell rang in the middle of the night, he feared the worst.
"Well, I thought right away there was something wrong,” Knigge said. “I figured it was my grandma."
Authorities aren't sure what caused the fire, but family members say firefighters suspect it was the stove or oven. For the family, all that was left was to salvage what little they could from the still smoking house.
Miraculously, a collection of old photos survived the fire. June's granddaughter, Anna Lee Polzine, says they're lucky but other items full of memories are still missing. "This is stuff we can't ever get back,” Polzine said. “We can't find them. She had them in her house, in boxes and photo albums. And they'd be gone."
Polzine says the old photos show how much Wiese cared about her family.
"She loved her grandchildren,” Polzine said. “She loved her family. That was important to her. And her memories showed that. She kept everything they ever did."
Family members say Wiese had lived in the house for longer than they could remember.
