It is a simple gravestone near the entrance of the historic Glenwood Cemetery. But upon closer inspection, the inscription leaves the observer with many questions.
“She lies here a martyr at the carelessness of man.”
Buried at the site is seven-year-old Bernice Eugenia Washington. But what happened to the young child? What led to such a specific, yet strange inscription upon her gravestone?
It was a hot summer day in August of 1913 in Yazoo City along Grand Avenue. Children were playing in the front lawns of their homes along one of the city’s busiest roadways. The Washington family was among those families with their small daughter, Bernice, playing in the front yard of their home at the corner of Eighth Street and Grand Avenue. Along with two of her friends, she “was playing in the grass plot on the side of the street.”
According to a 1913 news article, a Mutual Telephone Company wire had dropped across one of the city’s live wires near the Washington home. Within minutes of seeing the hanging wire, Bernice “took hold of the end of the dangerous wire.”
News reports said that 2,300 volts of the live wire passed through the poor child, burning completely off portions of her left hand.
“Hearing the screams of the other children, the mother, Mrs. Washington, rushed out only to see her little daughter, who but a few minutes before had left her happy, cheerful and full of life, lying dead with the deadly wire firmly gripped in her hand,” the article reads.
Bernice’s mother even tried to grab the fabric of her dress but she herself was thrown to the ground three different times. Friends and neighbors attended to the Washington family as the power to the wire was cut off.
“At the time of the accident, the father and two other children were at their work in the Yazoo Yarn Mill,” the article continues. “The news to them was a sad and severe shock.”
Apparently, the telephone wire had formerly been connected with a phone. After it was disconnected, it remained attached to a house. The insulators had broken loose from the house, thus allowing the wire to drop, encountering a city’s high-tension wires, which carry a voltage of 2,300.
Bernice’s funeral was held at the family home a few days after the tragic accident with Rev. R.T. Holcomb officiating. About a month later, the horrible accident made headlines again when the Mutual Telephone Company and the city of Yazoo City settled with Bernice’s father, J.T. Washington, for the accidental death.
“The terms of the settlement were $3,000, the telephone company and the city paying $1,500 each, the telephone company also paying the funeral expenses,” the article reads. “The accident was a most regrettable one, and it is gratifying to know that it has been amicably settled without referring to the courts.”
Based on inflation calculations, the settlement would be equivalent to about $95,000 today.
The small gravestone stands a reminder of that tragic day, a horrible accident and the loss for a family and community.
