Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family
history through old photographs.
This month Sepia Saturday is all about travel to and fro.
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| Unknown woman Grove Hill, Page Co, VA train station |
I wonder who this unidentified woman at the Grove Hill train station was and
where she was going. Maybe just a few miles away to Shenandoah or Luray? Maybe
further along the route to Harrisonburg, Staunton, or Roanoke? Or maybe she had
a big trip planned to Washington DC or even New York.
No doubt she was a passenger on the Norfolk & Western
Railroad that ran through the Shenandoah Valley. The railroad was big business
in the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for the
little town of Shenandoah, Virginia, where so many of my ancestors lived. Over
30 members of my family were employed at one time or another by the railroad.
They were conductors, engineers, brakemen, firemen, car repairmen, signal men, clerks,
and railroad storekeepers.
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| My great-grandfather Joseph Rucker 4th from left |
If citizens of Shenandoah didn’t work for the railroad,
they were neighbors to someone who did. The N&W fostered a tight community.
So it must have been a sad time for everyone when one of their own was hurt on
the job. No doubt friends and neighbors rallied around my family when a
son/husband/brother/father confronted the worst day of his life on the job.
Hiram Oscar Eppard (2nd great uncle)
11 Sep 1894 Alexandria Gazette
Oscar Eppard, aged 24 years, of Shenandoah was killed by
a fall from the new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge over Gwynn Falls,
Baltimore, yesterday.
John W. B. Jollett (1st cousin 3X removed)
6 Aug 1897 Harrisonburg Rockingham Register
At an early hour last Thursday morning a freight wreck
occurred on the Norfolk & Western Railroad near Ingham Station, about twelve
miles south of Luray. The train was going north, and becoming uncoupled,
without the knowledge of the engineer, the rear part ran into the forward cars
as the engineer slowed up for the station. Some half dozen cars were demolished
and a man named Turley, said to be a brother of Mr. George F. Turley, train
dispatcher of Shenandoah, Page County, who was riding on the train, was killed.
Mr. John W. B. Jollett, of the same place, was injured, as was also another man
whose name has not been learned. The wreck delayed the running of trains for
several hours.
Clement Willard Escue (stepson of 1st cousin
2X removed)
1935 Bluefield Daily Telegraph
C. W. Escue, Injured
Virginian Engineer,
Passes at Oak Hill
C. W. Escue, 36, Virginian Railway engineer, who was
burned severely in a head-on collision between two freight trains at Wriston,
W. Va., on February 24, died in an Oak Hill hospital Friday afternoon, it was
learned yesterday.
Mr. Escue was one of the ten men injured when the two
freight trains collided. It is understood that all other members of the crew
injured are recovering satisfactorily.
Mr. Escue was a former Princeton resident. He moved to Page about three years ago.
Hop aboard the Sepia Saturday train to see the sights my
blogging friends have shared.
Wendy
© 2016, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.
