December 1916 - Februrary 1917 - Hit by drunk driver

You may ask if I succeeded in this line, wait a minute I am coming to that. I was doing fairly well, not so good as I might do, but I was paying expenses anyway. When on the 9th of December I was crossing Avenue A going up twenty-second street West at about 15 minutes to seven in the evening. I was going home at that time, I living at 111 S. South.

As I was crossing the Avenue I saw a ford car fully a block away, they was speeding for all the car was worth, they were on the wrong side of the road. The car contained 4, if not 5, men in khaki uniform belonging to the 243 battalion. They ran into the rear end of my dray, I heard the smashing of glass and that was all until the police was putting me in the patrol wagon, people called it Black Maria.

Well just think of it - me a Christian man and a great temperance man to be put into that conveyance, just as they was putting me in I came to consciousness I seeing police I did not know what had happened. "What are you going to do with me, where's my team?" "Where do you live?" asked the police. "Where's my team?" I asks again. "Never mind your team, where do you live?" "You know me" I says, "Yes, but we don't know where you live". I was so muddled I hardly knew where I did live until the question was put again. I told them I could hear people talking, my eyes too dim to see much.

"Those men are drunk" I heard some say. "Yes we know" says the police then starts away for home with me. Oh say, I began to feel like there had been an accident. Oh that ride was a terrible one. The police put me to bed, the Doctor was called, the same Doctor that had attended me in the accident I had in May. It was Doctor DesRosiers, He thought it was all up with me this time. I was so smashed up , my back hurt, two ribs in front, two in back, both arms badly hurt.

"How long was you laid up this time". Oh only seven months and a half. I lost about eighteen hundred dollars with loss of work, a team of horses eating their heads off doing nothing, Doctor and other expenses. "You would get compensation for this accident would you not?" Wait till I tell you the whole story then you will see what compensation I get. the car was all broken up but not one of them was hurt. They was arrested and brought before Magistrate Brown but I not being able to appear in court against them they was remanded.

The police came about two months after to see how I was getting along and if I could appear in Court but I could not walk let alone leave the house. I was able to go out in the second week of March 1917.