Grandpa Stanley Burned

As told to my by my father.

Before my dad was born, in 1920, his dad James Stanley was a chauffeur. He was returning home one night along the sea shore when a woman ran into him while at a stop sign. Her car had oil burning headlights. Her car caught fire trapping her and her child in the car. My grandfather pulled both out of the car catching on fire while doing so. He started running to the nearby ocean thought better of it and stopped dropped and rolled putting out the fire.

I was told the only place not burned was under his shoe laces. At least one of his eye lids was very badly burned. They did an early graft by fixing his arm so that the skin pressed to his eye.

He went into the hospital weighing at least 250 pounds. Six months later my grandmother, Ellen carried him home in a laundry basket to die. He weighed less than 90 pounds.

For the rest of his life his hands cracked and bled often by closing them due to the scarring. 

From the stories my father told me I have gathered that you could not get away with calling him disabled.