Evening star., 1941-04-19
Banquet Of D. A. R.
Broken Up as Girl
Screams From Shock
Miss lmiIdu Buckingham
Of Baltimore Is FeIIed
Gruspine Microphonei

Quet Of the 50th Continental Con-
gress Of the Daughters of the Amer
ican Revolution.
The shock victim, Miss Imilda
Buckingham, 81. of Baltimore, Md,
received the electric current through
her body when she graspeu two
microphoneS to move them to the
center of the MayfloWer Hotel ball
room stage. She was carried on a
stretcher, unconscious, to the Office
of the hotel physician, DR.. F. A.
Hornaday, who said later that she
had suffered a mild shock and no
burns. Within an hour after the
accident, Miss Buckingham had re-
covered sufficiently to say she would
60 home today.
The apparatus was checked by
engineers Immediately after the &C
cident, Mrs. Henry M. Robert, jr.
president general, reported to the
congress this morning. Investiga-
ton showed she said, that there
was no defect and that engineers
had tested every way they could get
a shock and had received none.
The probable cause of the accl-
dent, she said, must have been the
fact that in the excitement of the
program the girls hands had become
dampened with perSpiration. Mrs.
Robert assured the Daughters that
the girl was quite all right, although
still suffering from shock"
Falls to Floor.
Miss Buckingham niece of the
banquet chairman, Mrs. Elmer E.
WoolIen of Baltimore, was appearing
on the program in the costume of a
Colonial courier. When she started
screaming the guests at first thought
1t was a part of the skit. The cur
rent had forced her hands to con-
tract around the metal bases of both
mic~ophones. She slumped to the
stage floor and lay writhing there.
While the other courier" ;" Miss
Margaret Waldeck of the District,
tried tc knock her away from the
microphones, Mrs. Lowell Hobart,
former president general of the
society, sought to unloosen the girls
hands, thereby taking part of the
shock in her own body An elec-
trician rushed 20 the electric plugs
and disconnected the circuit.
Mrs Woollen, who had hurried
to her niece's side, raised her arms
to quiet the 1850 women and asked
them to leave the hall.
Trouble Preceded Accident.
The rear tragedy terminated an
evening, in which there had been
much banter over microphone trou-
BILE. Soon after the retiring national
officers had mounted the stage to
do a skit called "InquiSition Please"
the transformer broke down and the
three microphones went dead.
The dead microphones led Mrs
Robert, president general and leader
Of the skit, to remark:
who would have ever thought a
president general would have
enough energy left at the end of a
Continental Congress to kill three
microphones!"
Megaphones were sent for and
added to the gaiety when Mrs.
Robert found they knocked her eye
glasses off and kept her from read
ing her notes. At frequent inter-
walls, she popped up to shout hello
into the dead microphones, to see
if they were working. The dele
gates sang "Oh, dear, what can the
matter be? Sally Mrs. Robert) is off
Of the air.
A temporary microphone was
plugged in on the house current and
the program had reached the point
where Mrs. William H. Pouch, the
neWly-elected president general, was
to be introduced. Mrs. Pouch had
Just been led to the stage by her
husband, New York steel eXecu-
tive.
110-Volt Shock.
Some one in the balcony shouted
that the three microphones we're
back in service and Miss Bucking-
ham reached for one of them, mov-
ing it as her other hand clung to
the temporary microphone. Hotel
officials said the current which ran
through her body could not have
exceeded the ITO volts of the house
current.
One of the delegates, as the others
left the hall, came to the stage to
ask that an announcement of the
girls condition be made at once be-
cause many of the guests feared the
girl had been electrocuted.
The banquet, annual occasion at
which the officers and delegates re-
lax, sing songs and tell jokes, is the
social high light of the congress. 1t
was to have concluded with all the
guests tossing serpentines as a fare
well gesture. When the women
started tossing the serpentines
earlier in the evening, Mrs Robert
requested that they save them for
the last moment of the banquet.
In the afternoon more than 1900
Daughters were guests at the White
House, although the mistress of the
executive mansion was not at home
Mrs. Henry Wallace, wife of the
Vice President. received the dele
cation. At intervals, Mrs. Robert
H. Jackson, wife of the Attorney
General, took over while Mrs. Wal
lace rested. Mrs. Robert stayed at
her post throughout, shaking hands
with all the Daughters.