Clements - Tessie Grimes - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Last Friday at her home, 1004 East Pike Street, Mrs. James Clements was fatally burned by the explosion of a can of gasoline, dying of her injuries Saturday morning at two o’clock.

Mrs. Clements had a short time before the accident received a can of gasoline from her husband to return for a can she had borrowed from a neighbor. As it was eight o’clock she decided to delay the trip to the neighbor’s house until morning and instructed her seven year old son, Delbert, to take the can into the cellar. The boy started down the steps but stopped, saying that it was too dark for him to see.  His mother then took the can and started down followed by Delbert and the younger child, Harold. She found it quite dark and thoughtlessly struck a match to enable her to see her way. The can of gasoline was open and the moment the match flashed a terrific explosion occurred.

The children were standing directly back of their mother and were so protected from the mass of burning fluid which poured over her person. The older boy, however, had one foot badly burned. With screams of pain and terror the mother and children rushed from the cellar way followed by the flames which, for a few moments, rose as high as the housetop. Mr. Clements was completely enveloped in the flames and ran around the house before help arrived. The first man on the scene was Lon Wrightsman, who last Saturday told the following story to The Journal:

“I was sitting on my porch, nearly a block from the Clements place and had taken off my shoes to rest when I heard the explosion and saw the flash of light. I leaped nearly ten feet from the porch, hearing as I did the screams of Mrs. Clements and the children. I called as I ran to Jimmie Clements in the store that the trouble was at his house and kept right on. I was there in less than half a minute after the explosion and met Mrs. Clements as she came around the house. Never to my dying day will I forget the scene. She was wrapped completely in the fire, the flames shooting at least two feet above her head. At her back were her little boys screaming and endeavoring to beat out with their hats the fire that was destroying their mother. Mrs. Clements saw me and ran to me calling, “Save me!” I seized her as she came and threw her on the grass, sitting on her head, thus protecting it with my legs from the fire. I threw her hair about her neck and shouted for someone to bring blankets. The little boys beat the flames with their hats and I tore off her burning garments in strips as I could.

One man came up and I howled to him in a frenzy to bring a blanket from the house but he ran to the front door and finding it locked would not kick it in. Meantime I tore off the burning clothes although I could not manage the corset, which was aflame and doing awful work. I rubbed her with grass and leaves and managed to get out most of the fire when a neighbor woman arrived and tearing off her skirt wrapped it about the poor creature, smothering the rest of the fire. This all happened in an incredibly short space of time—in much less time than it takes to tell it to you, and in three minutes a large crowd had collected with all sorts of things to smother the flames which wore then out. We took her into the house in less than two minutes after the accident I should judge, so you see how quick it all was.

I have seen some sad and awful things in my life, but never anything like that terrible spectacle last night. It will haunt me to my dying day. All last night I lay awake with that dreadful nightmare before me and the heartbreaking shrieks of the poor woman ringing in my ears. It takes a good deal to make me cry but I cried last night like a little child.”

Carl Scott was out driving and happened to be passing near the Clements place as the accident occurred. He drove there at once and arrived just as Wrightsman and a woman had succeeded in putting out the flames which tortured the victim of the accident. He drove at full speed to town and was back in no time with Dr. Swope. Other physicians soon arrived and five of them worked to allay the pain and distress of the unfortunate young woman. She was given medicine to allay her pain merely, it being manifest from the first that she would die in a few hours. Her whole body, except her face, which Wrightsman had protected, was covered with burns and she had inhaled the fire. She was conscious and conversed with her family until shortly before her death.

Mrs. Clements was twenty six years of age and was the daughter of James P. Grimes by his first wife. She was a young woman with many friends and her death falls heavily upon not only her relatives but upon all who knew her. She leaves a husband and two little boys. The funeral took place Sunday afternoon at three o’clock at the Christian Church, interment at Oak Hill.