Extracted from The Alexandria Daily Town Talk (Alexandria, LA)
Wednesday, December 10, 1919

MOTHER AND CHILD DIE

CHILD'S CRIES BRING MOTHER TO HER DEATH AT COLUMBIA, LA.

Columbia, La., December 10. -- Mrs. Ethel Moore and her little three-year-old daughter were fatally burned after a gasoline explosion Saturday night at their home about ten miles west of here. Her husband, Luther Moore, had bought what he thought was a can of kerosene oil for his house lamps, but through some oversight, it appears, he was given gasoline, and when the little girl attempted to light a lamp filled with the gasoline it exploded and set her clothing on fire.

The mother was in the kitchen preparing supper and when she heard the cries of her child she ran to it, and in her frantic attempts to extinguish the flames her own clothing caught fire. Both were so badly burned that they died a few hours later.

An infant child was badly burned, too, but it was thought it will recover. Mr. Moore was out in the barn attending to the stock when the accident occurred, and he did not know of it until it was too late to save the life of his wife and child. The home of the unfortunate family was destroyed by fire.