Just before 9 p.m. on the night of September 6, 1915, 15 year-old
Ethel Dissell, 9 year-old Christine Dissell, and their step-sister 14 year-old
Abbey Parsons were enjoying their walk in West Hartford, CT. The evening was an
exciting one, as the three girls were making their way down Webster Hill
to watch the fireworks that were supposed to take place at the Charter Oak Fair
Grounds that evening. Unfortunately, it started to rain, so the girls headed
down the hill toward their home on Park Road. They were walking on the east of
South Main Street. As they walked, Wilton Sherman, an upstanding and well-known
citizen of the Town pulled out of his driveway and began to drive north on the
same street.
As the girls headed down the
hill, Ethel was walking nearest the road, with Christine and Abbey next to her.
They walked along the edge of the street, as there was no sidewalk. According
to the Hartford Courant, a car traveling south on South Main Street
came over the hill with bright headlights. As the car neared Sherman, he was
blinded by them and failed to see the girls on the side of the road. A driver
behind him also noted that he was blinded by the headlights.
While Sherman was, according to
him and other eyewitnesses, traveling at about twenty miles per hour, he was
unable to see the girls and hit Ethel and Abbey, and clipped Christine. Both
Ethel and Abbey were knocked unconscious. A local doctor was nearby and
attempted to revive the unconscious girls while an ambulance was summoned. Both
of them were taken to St. Francis Hospital, but Christine insisted on being
taken home, as she had just a sprained ankle.
At the hospital, Abbey awoke,
but was severely bruised and had lacerations over much of her body. Ethel was
found to have a fracture at the base of her skull and she passed away at 9:30
p.m. Mrs. Dissell was obviously absolutely devastated by the loss of her
child.
Wilton Sherman was also
devastated by the injuries and death he caused.
When he saw Ethel and Christine in the road, he collapsed and was removed to
his home just up the street. Friends said that he was in "a highly nervous
condition". He was later charged with criminal negligence and reckless driving. At the trial, Sherman discussed the bright lights,
saying that he did not use his own due to "the ordinances of this city
regarding dazzling lights". In addition, the road was slippery from the
rain, and the car slid another twenty or thirty feet after he hit the brakes.
Another witness suggested that the twenty miles per hour at which Sherman was
traveling was not a "safe speed under the circumstances," but that it
was "impossible to see anything in the face of the strong
headlights." In the end, he was found not guilty by the West Hartford justice court on October 4, 1915.
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| 1909 Sanborn Map, West Hartford, CT |
Ethel's mother, Mrs. Anna M.
(Simpson) Dissell Parsons lost her first husband in December of 1909, leaving
her a single mother with four sons and two daughters. In 1913, she remarried a
Massachusetts transplant, Alonzo Parsons, who had several children of his own,
most of whom were adults. His youngest daughter, Abbey, was the only one still
at home. The Parsons family moved into the Dissell home on Park Road. In June of
the next year, the youngest Dissell son, Henry, passed away at the age of 11.
Just one month before the loss of Ethel, Alonzo's twenty year old daughter,
Anna, passed away.
In 1913, when Alonzo and Anna
were married, Anna's children were Edward (24), James (23), Richmond (18),
Ethel (14), Henry (11), and Christine (5). Alonzo's children were Florence
(29), Franklin (22), Anna (20), and Abbey (12). He had also lost three children
at very young ages.
While the story of the
Dissell/Parsons clan isn't necessarily a happy one, I was happy to see that the
young Abbey Parsons later married Richmond Dissell. They named their daughter
Ethel Christine in honor of his lost sibling and her friend.
