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Chapter 5: My Hand
It happened on a Saturday afternoon in November 1922, when I
was 18 months old. Mother was uptown, shopping for the family. Dad
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My brother Sam, age 4½, was playing with me in the backyard of 459
Pugsley Street. In those days (pre-environmental worries!) folks burned
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considered long-since dead. No one saw that I had been attracted to the
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glowing underneath the surface. I thrust my left hand into the ashes to
push myself up, and as it burned my hand, I screamed. Sam came run-
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came running. Dad called Dr. David Smith, who lived in the neighbor-
hood, asking him to come. My left hand was badly burned, I had a burn
on my neck and a burn over my cheek and left eye. Dr. Smith cleaned
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sight in my left eye.
Dad called Grandfather Holmes, who lived just a block away,
and the two of them gave me an LDS priesthood blessing that my sight
might be saved. I know of no other reason for the subsequent healing
because my sight through my left eye has been good all my life. I thank
God, Dad, and Grandfather for their faith and actions.
My brother Gordon, a doctor, has remarked to me that, in his
opinion, burns are the worst sort of injury. A burn damages nerves, but,
unlike a cut, doesnt sever them. As a result, the pain goes on much lon-
ger. I have no memory of the pain from the burns. However, for many
days thereafter my parents carried me around to assuage my pain. My
Dads love is illustrated by the fact that, though he had worked all day
long at hard physical labor as a boilermaker, when he returned home he
carried me in his arms until I fell asleep at night.
Dr. Smith made a sad error in bandaging the hand. He bound the
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