Transportation - The Importance of Trains in my Family Stories

Trains have been very important in American history and several of my family stories mention trains.  I will share some of them here this week.

https://ya-webdesign.com/explore/railroad-clipart-steam-train/

The saddest story of a train I have shared before and you can read that here:
https://regnirpsstories.blogspot.com/2019/03/large-family-john-ramer-and-his-20.html.

Another train story is from the Spurlock family.  According to family tradition, John Wesley and Jennie Katherine Miller Spurlock moved their family from Dunklin Co., Missouri to Ellis Co., Texas on a train in the last half of 1900.  Here is the 1900 Dunklin Co., Missouri census taken on June 12th, before they left for Texas.  Note that Elsey is only 2 months old!

Year: 1900; Census Place: Cotton Hill, Dunklin, Missouri; Roll: 853; Page: 4B;
Enumeration District: 0042; FHL microfilm: 1240853

There is a Tax Record that confirms that they were in Ellis Co., Texas by 1903.

There is another train story in the Pitts family.  According to Ellna Pitts Byrd, the niece of Maggie Pitts Clark, Maggie's two older brothers, Jim and Bob travelled from Pontotoc, Mississippi on a train about 1886, after their father, Elijah died.  According to this story, Maggie had already moved to Texas to live with their half brother, George Washington Pitts after her mother, Lucinda died about 1885.  Maggie would have been about 12 years old.  Here is what Ellna wrote:

Page 1 of 3 page Narrative of Pitts Family written by Ellna Pitts Byrd

It is very likely that Maggie had also been sent on the train when she travelled to Texas - but we can't be sure.

In one of my great grandmother's, Ella Busby Springer, poems she mentions a train.  It's a little corny, but - a train is a train!  The story is about her son Philip, his wife, Myrtle and their son, Robert.

CAME HOME FROM WORK

Philip came home about six thirty,
He opened the door saw everything dirty,
It filled him with a grave apprehension,
Myrtle must be sick or gone to a convention.

So, he went through the house into their room,
She was not sick but Oh! the gloom,
To find her not there and gone he knew not where,
So he sat down in a easy chair.

To await the coming of his lady fair,
So he got to musing on dangers of life,
What if the train had killed his wife.

Then he thought of Robert their only joy,
What if he was an orphan boy,
He thought of this and thought of that,
Then he declared she'd had a flat.

Then in came Myrtle all apologetic,
I had a flat and don’t you forget it,
I was coming home a mile a minute,
When I heard a sound 1ike the devil was in it.

So, I got out and looked around,
One wheel was flat on the ground,
I called the office you were gone,
Called home, you hadn't come.

So, I called the garage to send a man,
To fix a casing quick as he can,
So here I am all a flutter,
To fix us some sandwiches for supper.

Philip asked why in the world you didn’t start sooner
Oh! I was listening at such a divine crooner,
Philip got thinking of frivolities of 1ife,
But what is home without a wife.

Here's Philip:

Philip Springer, Personal Collection

There is another story about a train in the Busby family.  Ella's half brother, Horace Busby is the subject of this story. Here is a quote from "The Life of Horace W. Busby" by Loyd L. Smith, Gospel Preachers Of Yesteryear, c.1986, pages 82-86, First Published in the "Christian Worker", June, 1979:

About the time he [Horace] was teaching that term of school he became acquainted with Miss May Wise, daughter of an elder in the Mt. Peak church of Christ. Her father had forbidden her to keep company with any young man who was not a member of The church, but she and Horace began to develop much interest in each other. Their courtship continued, though with difficulty, until they decided to elope. She went to Ft. Worth to "visit relatives," and he got his father to take him to Midlothian to catch the train for Ft. Worth. My information does not reveal whether or not his father knew what was going on, but he went to Ft. Worth and they were married in North Ft. Worth on August 2, 1904.  They immediately went by train to Mangum in "Old" Greer County in Oklahoma where Horace had two uncles, Charlie L. and Tom Busby.

Here is a photo of Horace:

http://therestorationmovement.com/_states/texas/busby.htm

Another story where the train is mentioned is in my great grandmother, Jennie Ferguson Ramer's Autobiography/Biography.  Here is how the train was important in her life:

Jennie always said that she and Henry had planned to be married when she was seventeen, since that was the age of our mother when she was married. However, our family was moving to Texas in January 1892, so their marriage date was advanced more than a year. She and Henry RAMER were married at Ramer, Tennessee December 29, 1891. Three weeks later, January 10, 1892, Jennie and Henry with her parents, brothers and sisters boarded the train at Ramer, Tennessee for Waxahachie, Texas. We arrived at our destination January 12, 1892.

Mother had two sisters living a few miles southwest of Waxahachie. We moved to a farm near Aunt Callie Boothe and Aunt Tennie Williams. Papa and Henry made and gathered one crop in Ellis County (Jennie and Henry were living with us). In December 1892, the family moved to Rayner, the county seat of Stonewall County. Rayner was sixty miles northwest of Abilene, Texas, the nearest railroad station.

Papa, Henry, and brother Bob, each with a wagon and team, drove through the country with our household furniture to Stonewall County. Mother, Jennie, and the rest of the family went on the train from Waxahachie to Abilene. Papa had a brother living in Callahan County about fifteen miles from Abilene. Uncle Bud met us and took us to his house. A few days later Papa, Henry, and Bob came through with their wagons. The whole family made the remaining miles of the trip on the wagons.

Henry and Jennie Ferguson Ramer and their first Four children.
Personal Collection

I am sure that there are other family stories where trains were important, but this will be enough for this post.  I had never really thought about the importance of trains in my family's stories.  I am glad that Amy challenged us to think about transportation and write something about it!

'Til Next Time!
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