I’ve Danced My Life Away

Frank Alexander’s Been Killed

You probably don’t know it, but my father was doing drills for the quarry in his blacksmith’s shop. He had a contract with the quarries, and he sharpened the drills. The workers were not supposed to use the drills. They were hollow, and they were not supposed to use the drills to tamp the dynamite in, but they did. One time my father was holding a drill - it had been in the fire and it was red hot and he was striking it. When he struck it, it blew his hand off. That’s why he didn’t have an orchestra anymore, or do blacksmithing anymore. He became the town tax collector then, and he was tax collector for 27 years.

I think the accident happened in 1922. I remember that I was a sophomore in high school, and someone came running up Knowlton Street hill and said, "Frank Alexander’s been killed!" And I took off and ran home as fast as I could run. I didn’t go to school. My mother had heard it and came home from wherever she was, and she said, "Why are you home?" and I said, "I heard Papa was killed." "No," she said, "he wasn’t killed but there was an accident and he’s down in the hospital." That was in Rockland.

I remember that year we had tons and tons of snow, and the sidewalks downtown were like a tunnel, you know, because the snow that was in between was really high. My uncle George heard about this accident, and he came running from up in Millville somewhere just in time. At that time my father had his own blacksmith shop in back of the Opera House, you know, where it’s parking now I guess. He had two men working for him; one was shoeing horses and the other one was doing iron tires for wagon wheels, and my father did the expert work.

Anyway, when the accident happened it blew the nozzle off an acetylene tank, and it blew holes all through the ceiling of the thing and of course threw his arm up in the air, and when it came down there was nothing, you know. So he yelled at the men to help him and they were paralyzed with fear - they couldn’t help him! So he grabbed his arm himself and tried to stop the bleeding and ran up to the corner where there was Chandler’s Drug Store, which is now the photography shop. They couldn’t help him. They just were stunned, you know. It looked terrible! He ran all the way from there up to Dr. Hart’s house, which is now Hartstone Inn.

Dr. Hart had presence of mind enough to put a tourniquet on his arm. I guess he called Central Maine Power Company, and they sent a car up. We had street cars then. The CMP stopped everything and sent it right from Glen Cove while Dr. Hart was bandaging the arm, and they put him on this car and rushed him up. My uncle George arrived and jumped into the car as it was moving. They took my father to Rockland to the hospital and amputated what was left of it.

There was an old man by the name of John Paul who had been the tax collector here for years and years and years, and there were many people who wanted a change. I guess the first selectman came down to the hospital and talked to my father and asked him if he would take the job as tax collector, and he said he would. He was at a loss, you know. He didn’t know what he was going to do with both of his sources of income gone and four people and a father and a wife to support, so as soon as he was able they voted him in. I think it was in January or February that he was hurt. The town meeting came up and the other man was defeated. My father was very well liked, very well liked here in town. They voted him in as tax collector and he was tax collector for 27 years until his retirement.