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Funeral set for 7 children killed in Pennsylvania farmhouse fire

By the CNN Wire Staff
The children, who ranged in age from 7 months to 11 years, died March 8 when the fire engulfed the farmhouse.
The children, who ranged in age from 7 months to 11 years, died March 8 when the fire engulfed the farmhouse.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • The funeral is scheduled for the Perry Mennonite Reception Center in Elliottsburg
  • The children's ages range from 7 months to 11 years
  • The six girls and one boy were found dead inside the house
  • Police: The mother was milking cows in the barn and the father was at work

(CNN) -- A rural Pennsylvania community will say goodbye Tuesday to seven children who were killed when their parent's farmhouse went up in flames last week.

The children -- ages 7 months to 11 years -- died March 8 when the fire fully engulfed the Mennonite family's two-story house in Loysville, about 25 miles northwest of Harrisburg.

Their parents were both outside the house at the time of the fire. Mother Janelle Clouse was milking cows in the barn and father Ted Clouse was making deliveries on his milk route.

"While mom's milking cows, her 3-year-old daughter comes running into the barn and the 3-year-old tells the mother that there's smoke inside the house," Tom Pinkerton of the state police said last week. "Mom leaves the barn, comes running out, sees that the house appears to be on fire."

The mother went to two neighbors' houses before she could get someone to call 911, he said. She then found her husband sleeping in his milk truck and they rushed back to the home to find their home engulfed in flames and firefighters trying to put out the blaze.

Seven children killed in farmhouse fire
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The children -- six girls and a boy -- were found dead inside the house. The 3-year-old was the only child who survived.

The funeral is scheduled for the Perry Mennonite Reception Center in Elliottsburg. Burial will be at the Church of the Living Christ cemetery.

The fire sent shock waves through the central Pennsylvania community.

"It's just hard to explain how somebody could lose their whole family in a wink of an eye like that," Steve Orris, who works at an insurance company in Loysville, said last week. "It's just unbelievable."

"Everybody I've talked to here ... has felt a lot of sympathy toward these people. It's a real shame the way things like that happen," he said.