When 14-year-old Ethel Lord went outside on a cold, clear Saturday afternoon (November 23, 1935) , she never dreamed she would be a victim of a war, much less one which had ended before she was born. But, that was the case when she came too close to an undetonated hand grenade in her own front yard. Her perilous injuries were caused when Ethel inadvertently raked the explosive device into a pile of burning leaves.
As a part of infantry training, soldiers tossed armed hand grenades and fired live artillery rounds downrange into the western limits of Twiggs County. Lots of rounds have been found over the last century. Some still look for the elusive, yet still potentially dangerous, implements of war.
“We didn’t know what it was. It was about the size of a man’s hand with sort of a trigger on the side,” Ethel’s cousin, Marion Williams, told a reporter for the Macon Telegraph. Williams was helping Ethel with her chores. Ethel noticed a metal object and raked it out of the smoldering fire. She turned and began to walk away when a tremendous blast knocked Ethel to the ground. Williams, who miraculously escaped any injuries, further stated, “Suddenly the thing began to smoke. Then there was a blast and the whole charge seemed to have entered Ethel’s legs. I don’t know how I escaped because I was standing a few feet away.” The explosion blasted fire for a considerable distance in the yard of Ethel’s parents, Carlos Coswell Lord and Ethel Bennett Lord, on Franklinton Road on the site of the camp’s abandoned arsenals.
Ethel was rushed in her father’s car to a Macon hospital, where she was treated for severe damage to both of her badly mangled ankles. Ethel remained in the hospital throughout the Thanksgiving holiday, her legs secured inside plaster casts. Her doctors gave Ethel a delightful Christmas present, her release to go home for Christmas holidays.
After a brief visit with her family, Ethel returned to the hospital under the care of surgeon, Dr. W.A. Newman, who repaired her broken ankles. For another year, Ethel found herself getting out of and going back into the hospital until her final dismissal on January 29, 1937.
Under the treatment of doctors, O.F. Keen, Harry Moses, and Paul S. Kemp, Ethel’s broken ankles continued to get better as her father’s hospital debts quickly mounted. Ethel’s father documented his expenses and conducted his own forensic examination of the site. Lord and his friends, Marion Williams, James Harvey, Willie Sapp, John Willie Jones, and Shedrick Jones, found multiple fragments of grenade shrapnel as well as other pieces of metal ripped apart by the blast, all substantiated by sworn affidavits.
Although Lord swore that he had never sued or had been sued, he photographed the scene in preparation of some type of law suit against those persons whose negligence caused grievous bodily harm and nearly killed his little girl. Marion Williams and Mr. Lord managed to locate a similar unexploded grenade about a mile away. Ethel’s doctors, Kemp and Newman, prepared detailed reports and accounts of Ethel’s treatment as well.
A complete report and claim for Ethel’s medical bills and suffering was prepared and submitted to the House Committee on Claims by Congressman Carl Vinson of Milledgeville. Ethel through her father and his attorney, asked Claims Committee Chairman, Ambrose Kennedy, and a majority of the committee for a ten thousand dollar settlement for all claims arising from her injuries. Ethel’s lawyer’s dropped their claim to $5000.00 after being pressured by the government’s lawyers.
Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring initially denied any liability on the part of the Army or the government of the United States. However, the secretary promised Mr. Lord that he would not object to any relief granted by the passage of a bill by Congress.
The House of Representatives passed the bill authorizing the payment in July of 1937. The Senate Committee delayed action until a further investigation could be conducted by Senator Lewis Baxter Schwellenbach, of Wisconsin. Further action never came and bill died for lack of support in the Senate.
Ethel B. Lord, who early in her adult life was a beautician, was born on October 4, 1921, probably in Washington County, Georgia. She married Olin Lee Asbell, a Jeffersonville truck driver about 1940. The Asbells lived on Walnut Street in Macon. Ethel Asbell died on December 1, 1993 and buried beside her husband in Evergreen Cemetery in Macon, Georgia. Tragedy continued to plague Ethel, when in 1945 her first child, Olin Lee, Jr. died at the age of four while the couple was living on Columbus Road.
Although many claim to be first or last, it is evident that Ethel B. Lord was the last casualty of World War I, at least the last to be wounded by a hand grenade that was thought to be a dud or an armed one which was negligently left by military personnel when Camp Wheeler was first moth-balled in 1919.
Since there is nothing in the Congressional Record that the United States Senate ever approved the bill to relieve Ethel’s father, it seems that Carlos C. Lord was also a victim of the “War to End All Wars,” by having the pay the entire bill himself and becoming yet another victim of apathetic politicians.
Another seventy plus years would elapse before the Federal government launched
a massive and final cleanup of the old grounds of Camp Wheeler. The surveyors did recover
quite a bit of explosive arms and materials.
And it was right here in East Central Georgia when the last casualty of World War
I was a teen age girl, who was just trying to help out family with keeping their house and
yard clean.
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