Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 133

(fhicaflo (Tribune Sunday, July 1972 Section 5 by John A.ustatTriByne 'A SI, it5' Mi 1 t1 1 I After 4 and 18 seconds. 6 sccoids 8 seconds Less than half a minute alter we touched a Uxhted natch to the hen this 100 per rent cotton nightgown, the doll was engulfed in names! It could have been a real child. Flames Protect Your the Deadly rom When you go shopping fot sleep wear, what' do you look jot? Style? Color? Something you can wash easily and don't need to iron? Howxabout something that, won1 burn? If thaf what you've been looking for, you probably haven't had much luck. In a recent Consumers Union test, 75 out of 76 nightgowns bought at random were dangerously flammable. The Department of Commerce has ordered sleepwear manufacturers to label products manufactured after uly 29 if they can't pass a scribed flame test.

BY CHRISTINE WINTER THERE IT WAS on sale. A cute, frilly granny nightgown of pink-flowered cotton, ruffled at the bottom and long sleeved just the thing to make your 3-year-old daughter look like a "princess." Naturally, you bought it. So what if 100 per cent cotton is the fastest burning, most flammable fiber? After all, you taught your little girl to stay away from matches, and she wasn't tall enough to turn the stove on by herself. Besides, you're a careful mother, and your daughter wasn't going to be in any danger. So you brought it home, and everybody said, "Isn't she cute?" and, "Doesn't she look precious?" Then, one day, while frying an egg for breakfast, you were called away from the kitchen.

Even tho it only took 10 seconds just 10 seconds to run back into the kitchen after you heard her scream, it was already too late. Your beautiful, 3 year-old "princess" was a burning torch trapped in the flames of her "adorable" but highly flammable nightgown. it right onto her dress. Every part of her skin covered by that dress was completely destroyed. She died six days later.

There is only one variable involved, here flammable clothing. So who is the villain? Is it the government, for dragging its feet from 1967, when the Congressional decision to take stronger steps to control flammable fabrics was made, until 1971, when the standards were proposed standards which won't go into full effect until 1973? Or is it the textile industry, which tho able to solve the mysteries of permanent press and stain', resistant fabrics, has continued to market highly dangerous clothing until forced to find an alternative by government legislation? BOTH ARE at fault, of course. But there is one more bad guy in the picture. The consumer. The mother who won't bother with flame-retardant sleepwear because of its cost, or its appearance, or the difficulty in finding it.

who hasn't convinced the textile industry that safety is as profitable as washability. Because with all the ruckus now over the Children's Sleepwear Standard which governs nightclothes from sizes 0 to there is one Cottiwed oh Page She had reached up to see. what Mommy left cooking on the stove. AND, IF YOU were the only one this had ever happened to, it would be your private tragedy, something for friends and neighbors to shake their heads about, a freak accident. But the Department of Health, and Welfare estimates between 3,000 and 5,000 deaths and 250,000 and 350,000 injuries, every year are from burns associated with flammable fabrics.

The most frequent victims of this "silent epidemic" are the young and the old children, especially up to age 9, and the elderly, especially women. HEW also points out that when clothing is involved in a fire, the victim is four times more likely to die; the burns are more widespread and deeper; the hospital stay is longer, and the cost is greater. TAKE THE example of two children who tried a little experiment with matches. Jimmy, 9, was playing with a whole book matches, lighting them one at a time and watching them burn. Suddenly, the whole book ignited.

He burned his right hand a painful, 1 but minor injury. Patti, 8, was not so lucky. When the match she was holding burned her finger, she dropped i Christine Winter is on tht staff of Lifestyle. nz'l2 Uirarodt33thcrsUr.ua Carolyn Toll ttportf Molhtrs Alone uts hrn trdie prtjuditt gmJl uomm itho kttp ibth Hit git matt tbildrtn. BYMAXYDANSU MARILYN Durham dotsal look much Kkt a Cinderella.

She tvtn uyt it "built aloi the urns off Smoke jr tho Bear" and looks likt "a baked owl." And it Menu a fittto late for her to be emerging from tht ashes. Sot it "a couple of years post hat two teen-aga daughters, and hat been an EvansvUte, houtewife for IS years. But her life has Just come under the spell of a magic wandin tho form of a spaghetti western 12k novel made from tho leftovers la Marilyn's mental refrigerator. What tht teems to have done in "Tht Man Who Lottd Cat Dancing" at i i ttrinf togtthoV a tot of "stock Variety' hat dubbed it "tht first women's lib oater." -5 "Car hasn't even been published (not until August, bat already It it a wild sue cast. The movie ricfcti have been bought A six-figure re-, prut deal has bean, made-with paperback pocfiabtr.

rights have been sold; other foreign rights art being transacted. In tdort, anything that eaa happen to a aovel has bote happening to "Ctt. MARILYN'S dona all this- and aha never even wrote a class theme before, lot atone abook. She tat down to writ "Cat" In Jaaaary, 1170, armed with ant year ft tht University of XvansviDe, a whole lot of omnivorout reading, and a bfetimt of watching Oast movies. Ber mottvaUoa was to atj up at middle aft.

So I told myself, If you can't writ about thm-s, you have to write about 1 Her tnbjr training Was paying attention to what writ art do wttfc their works, especially in tdvestart stories which tht likes because '1 borattaily." found particular Inspiration in Jeffrey Household, an Englishman who writes "stories with a chase in them, where tht aero it pushed out of a easy existence and put out oa hit own." Apart from hit "good, clean, fast writing, he makes you thmk he's told a great deal, which ht hasn't. I thought maybe he wtt in my boat and.didnt know anything." So Marilyn, who It so much tn indoor person sht "won't tvtn cut grass," decided to.writt "an outdoor Ctttitutl oa Page I off tht SS-year mortgage oa her 64 tar-old widowed mother's home. CHAIN-SMOKING Ciga rets, Marilyn sits In me living room of her "Ucky-tacky house" and In her toft, melodious voice taDs you "book writing it at much likt a fairy tale at it's supposed to be." She is dressed in' a blue plaid washdress and Kedt, and tht has an iron burn on her right forearm. Sht says tht only once re -vealed btr life's ambition, "to writ a big, Juicy, dirty tort-seller," when writing tut bar Inner most aecrtta for a party game. did her impossible dream come true? "I am act an mpert on anything," tht begins.

"I haven't been anywhere. I'vt never had a good Job. I know about a few ordinary emotions. I know whit It't like to be close to cracking Cinderella: Out of the Ashes and Into the Limelight Such Qood (Fcrmsr) Friends A x'trt tni htt iimmnit just cn'l tnjuhtft together tnymort, except ms)ie to the hoik null, U)i EleMor Page. crvoUioUUbCrct! Those myth thott.

treJit terJt i their tiers ret preposterous, fmis fames Male ft. Morf DcnitU Tribune fenturt wrtttr who contributes repJartf to littff It..