Live grenade has been in Abbeville home for 70 years; it was destroyed on Wednesday

Abbeville was home to a live grenade for the last 70 years. On Wednesday, the grenade was detonated by the U.S. National Guard, ending any possible accident.
It was blown up in Cow Island on Preston Road late Wednesday night by the Louisiana National Guard. The Louisiana State Police were also on seen.
When Galton Plaisance returned from fighting in Europe in World War II, he brought home some souvenirs. There was his uniform, a canteen, two Russian pistols, a German dagger and a grenade.
His wife, Lois, stored everything nicely in a cedar chest in the guest bedroom at his home in Abbeville. He died in 2006 at the age of 91 and his wife continued to live in the house with the grenade until she died in 2012.
Their son, Francis Plaisance, kept the house and did not change anything in it. His father’s WWII belongings remained in the cedar chest.
Over time, Francis would show his father’s souvenirs to anyone who wanted to see them. He would handle the live grenade and let visitors hold it. At one time, it even made its way to the front room for display.
“I remember my dad showing it to us,” said Francis. “We would talk about it. Overtime you forget about it.”
One day he showed the grenade to Abbeville Marshal Jeremiah Bolden, who informed him he better think about getting rid of the grenade because of the danger of having a live grenade in his house.
Then when his six-year-old grandson during a visit to the old house, asked him if the grenade was still in the cedar chest, an alarm went off in Francis’s head. Francis took it out of the cedar chest and placed it on the top shelf of the closet.
The next day, he called Dane Roy of the Abbeville’s Marshal’s Office to find out the correct way to dispose of a grenade.
“I got concerned when my grandson asked about it,” said Francis on Wednesday. “Because of that, today was that day.”
Francis called the local National Guard to see the proper procedure on how to get rid of a grenade. They informed him to call the Louisiana State Police, which he did. They dispatched a haz-mat unit to the house. The trooper took pictures of the grenade and sent them to someone at National Guard’s Camp Beauregard in Pineville.
Someone from the National Guard, based on the pictures, determined the grenade was dangerous because the pin was still in it.
The State Police took possession of the grenade.
A special National Guard unit was sent to Abbeville Wednesday night to detonate the grenade.
“I feel relieved it is out of here,” Francis said. “With small children, you never know what they are going to do. A small child could have been with my grandson and could have come in the back room, opened it up and pulled the pin.
“That shakes you. I am so thankful.”