Grady County GaArchives Obituaries.....Spence, Jr., Thomas L. November 1918
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Janet Sumner http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00011.html#0002510 June 3, 2004, 9:21 am

The Cairo Messenger, Friday, December 27, 1918
Death of Lieut. T. L. Spence In France

Thomasville, Ga., Dec. 24 - An account of the manner in which Lieut. Thomas L. 
Spence, Jr., former Tech football star, met his death in an airplane accident 
in France is told in a letter just received by his parents from Capt. Patten, a 
special friend of T. L., Jr.  The accident occurred about thirty miles from 
Issoudun, the great air training station, where Lieut. Spence was stationed.  
He had been invited by Capt. Patten to take Thanksgiving dinner with him, but 
decided instead to fly four hundred miles to Bordeaux and spend the day with 
some Thomasville boys stationed there.  To let Capt. Patten know that he could 
not be with him he flew over his camp, about thirty miles from Issoudun and 
dropped a note telling him of it.  As Capt. Patten finished reading the note he 
look up and saw that Lieut. Spence was having trouble with his plane over which 
he seemed to have lost control and it was fast coming down.  He jumped at once 
into a car and was at the place where the plane fell in a few minutes, but he 
found young Spence with life already extinct and the airplane a mass of 
wreckage.  There was no means of telling the direct cause of the accident, but 
it is supposed that some part of the machinery gave way and control was lost.  
Mr. and Mrs. Spence have received letters from other friends also, telling of 
the great sorrow among the men of the death of Lieutenant Spence, who was a 
great favorite with all who knew him.

T. L., as he was known by his hundreds of friends throughout south Georgia was 
one time a member of the Cairo base ball team and was one of the best players 
who ever donned a Cairo uniform.  He was a frequent visitor to Cairo and was 
well liked by every one in whom he came in contact. 

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