George Malin Williams (1891-1974)

It seems to me the adversary has had a desire to destroy me from the time I was a small child. But this evidently was not the Lord's will. His protection has saved me from many serious accidents and I have recovered from illnesses when the doctors have despaired of my life.

When I was a small child playing on the floor, my sister was carrying hot water and stumbled over me, scalding me severely. 

On another occasion, when I was just three years old, I contracted diphtheria and scarlet fever at the same time and almost died. But my mother took a spoon and scraped down into my throat to give me an opening through which to breathe. Later, they called the doctor; he lanced my throat while I was sleeping. The shock of this was an ordeal I shall never forget. ...

I went to work as an apprentice machinist at Silver Brothers. One day while I was working at a machine a fellow decided he would play a joke on me by pouring gasoline in my back pocket. This he did and then got another one of the fellows to throw a match at me. I was a living torch while I ran about 150 feet and dived into a vat of water. This was another occasion when my guardian angel was very close, for although I was badly burned I made a full and speedy recovery. ...

I was privileged to [serve in] the British Mission. ... After I had been in England for only fourteen months I was stricken with pneumonia. I was seriously ill for eight long months, and it was necessary for me to remain in a sanitarium for some time. The mission president felt it was advisable to release me and send me home. It took me one year to recover my health. ...

As I said before, the Lord has had his protecting angels near me all the days of my life. During World War I, while I was working at Garfield, I had to work with an air hammer on a scaffolding two stories high. As I stepped on the scaffold it gave way. A four by four board had been sawed almost in half. Down I went, hitting everything on the way down. But I was able to get up and walk away. When I was roofing I had many narrow escapes. While working on the sugar factory in Spanish Fork, I slipped and fell face down from the roof. But I was able to catch myself on the edge of the cornice. At the place where I would have fallen there was a cement mixer working two stories below. Another time I was working on the top of the Continental Bank building and someone had thrown a piece of felt roofing paper over and air duct. I fell over it and caught myself on the other side, saving myself from falling some thirteen stories. I also fell off two different roofs of homes, but something was there to break my fall and I never even suffered a broken bone. So you can see how good the Lord has been to me. 

("Life Story of George Malin Williams," available on FamilySearch.org > George Malin Williams (KWC8-FNZ) > Memories; punctuation and paragraphing modernized)