Hastings narrowly escaped losing its main business block to a fire about 2 a.m. Wednesday when Palatka and St. Augustine fire departments responded to a call for help to battle a blaze in the Bowles building, which took the life of 78-year-old Edward Loyless Goodwin, Sr., by asphyxiation.
A fire of unknown origin, believed possibly to have been started by a cigarette, broke out in the Goodwin apartment, where Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin and a son, James Carlyle, resided. The son took his mother to safety but was unable to return for his father because of the smoke. The elderly man was rescued from 30 to 45 minutes later by Richard Clark, an employee of the Florida Power and Light Co., who was cutting off electric wires from the burning building.
Clark attempted mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration and many worked with manual artificial respiration and a resuscitator was used in an effort to revive Goodwin, but he was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Palatka.
The fire was confined to the apartments with one severely damaged by fire and three others by smoke and water. No estimate has been made of the damage.
A Barber Shop, Toggery Shop and S & W Appliance Center on the ground floor of the building were not damaged by the fire but were damaged by water, it was reported.
Palatka Fire Chief Tom Perry said that the Palatka truck had one hose to assist in controlling the fire while the St. Augustine truck merely stood by in case the fire spread. The Hastings fire department pretty well had the fire under control when we arrived, Chief Perry said.
One source said that if it had not been for a metal roof which held the fire down it would probably have swept the entire block.
Paul Kafter suffered a bad laceration to his face from broken glass and an unidentified Black suffered a laceration requiring 11 stitches to close up in fighting the blaze. Palatka Daily News, Thursday, 5 Jul 1962.
Funeral services will be Friday at 3 p.m. in the Johnson Davis Funeral Home, Rev. Wayne Wells of Mt. Olive Baptist Church, Hastings, assisted by Rev. E. G. Daniels, United Methodist Church, Hastings, will officiate. Burial will be in Oak Hill East Cemetery.
Goodwin was a resident of Hastings since 1926 coming from South Carolina and was a retired carpenter.
Survivors include his widow, Vena, Hastings; two sons, Edward L., Jr., Eau Gallie, James Carlyle, Hastings; four sisters, Miss Senie Breeland Goodwin, St. Augustine, Mrs. Isabel R. Drummonds, St. Augustine, Mrs. Sheba G. Goodwin, Walterboro, S.C., Mrs. Ellen Lee, Bunnell; and four grandchildren. (Palatka Daily News Obituary dtd Thursday, 5 Jul 1962.)