Great Grandmother Elizabeth had taken a trip to see her daughter, Great Aunt Mary Dietch. While she was gone Big Matt decided to do something nice for her and install gas lighting in the house. Pictures had been taken down while the workmen put in the jets. When they were through he went about rehanging pictures. When he got to the master bedroom he had to light a match to see where he was. The jets were open. No stinkum in the gas back then. The roof went up, the walls went out. The roof came down and, according to oral history, settled on the, visible in the picture, four poster bed. Big Matt is said to have died four days later of compression injury but not before he awoke and sang the Our Father. Well that's what I was told.
