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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

His answer somewhat surprised me. He said that the little boy was lying on the bed, and appeared to be
perfectly comfortable, did not exhibit any symptoms of any pain whatsoever, although the skin was
completely burned off his entire body. He said that the child laid there, responsive to anything that was
said to him, and without exhibiting any concern of pain; he just laid there on his little bed, and
eventually just closed his eyes and left this world.

1 hesitated, and weighed the pros and cons of telling this story in this book, especially since I did not
have any personal recollection of this incident. However, hearing about it, at the age at which it was told
to me, left an impression on me that has lasted for nearly 80 years since it was told to me, and I figure
that this attempt of mine to memorialize that little boy’s horrible situation, by putting it on paper, may
keep that incident from being completely forgotten.

Mr. Charley Pearce and his wife, who died several years before he did, are both buried in Hopeful
Cemetery, although their headstones were made of poured concrete and the lettering has all disappeared
from them. Beside Mr. Charley Pearce is a small headstone apparently marking the grave of a small
child, and there is no legible writing on that headstone either. I can only assume that this would be the
grave of little Fred Pearce, but 1 know the two adjacent graves are the graves of Mr. & Mrs. Pearce
because somewhere years ago someone told me that was where they were buried.

Also, in the next burial plot, at the foot of Mr. Charley Pearce, is the grave of Allison Pearce, who was
the father of my cousin Rudolph, and who was the husband of my mother’s sister, Clara, whom we all
called Aunt Babe. Therefore, since the Pearce’s are right there sort of together in the cemetery, 1 can
only assume the child’s grave to be that of little Fred Pearce, since 1 am not aware of any other Pearce
child that died as a child.

One of Mr. Charley Pearce’s sons, Ralph Pearce, is the father of a grade school and high school class
mate of mine, Gerthena Pearce, and it is from Gerthena that I was able to come up with the child’s name
of being Fred Pearce. All of my life I have known about this situation, but until I talked to Gerthena
recently I had no name to go with the story, she had gotten it from her father, Ralph Pearce, older
brother of Fred. Fred Pearce was her uncle, years before she was ever born.

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