If I’d learned anything the first twenty-four hours, it was only a small beginning. I got the impression I was expected to be up as soon as Bill had fires going, on my toes, ready to help with breakfast and make lunches. If Thatch were still in bed and had to dress practically in front of me, I was to ignore that. But I found that mornings up in the mountains were clear and beautiful. Peeking out I saw the trees standing rigidly in frosty coats and the canyon below white with pre-dawn vapors. I even began to take interest in the big gang getting their motorcars and tools ready to go.
My education, like the trains, went right on. I learned that Mr. Candy planned to fill our [water] tanks every morning just before I was ready to wash dishes. He expected me to use all the kindling he could carry, and was disappointed if the box wasn’t empty.
“Use pulenty,” he advised. “Make fire hot quick.”
He left another box and went away. In a minute he was back with a chunk of ice. I had to show him where the icebox was so I knew Bill hadn’t received all this service. “Pretty soon no more ice,” he informed me.
I thought he meant winter would come; I learned later the railroad supplied ice until a certain date in September and then stopped, whether the temperature was hot or cold.
One day Mr. Candy didn’t show up. After Sally’s Other Husband [a radio show] I walked along the string of fifteen outfits. I found him sawing wood at a huge pile of ties.
“Hello,” I said. “Buena dia.”
“Como esta, Senora! You speak Spanish now.”
“That’s all I know. You didn’t come this morning.”
“Too busy yet. No more coal, gotta cut wood. Boss says coal comin’ but I think he donno when.”
I asked him how he filled our water tanks. He pointed to a huge tank car with a pump mounted on one end. Long hoses ran from the pump over the tops of the cars. “Lotta pump ‘em.” He said
“You have to fill all these cars?”
“Oh si, Senora. Every day. Mexican boys use lotta water.”
I made a mental note to conserve water.
“Cooky, too,” Mr. Candy added.
“They cook in the cars?”
“ No, Senora. China boy cook.”
So I met Cooky, a Chinese about thirty with buck teeth and straight black hair. He spoke very loud garbled English and apparently very loud garbled Spanish. I think he and Mr. Candy swore at each other continuously, but I couldn’t understand them.
“You cook ‘em outfit?” Cooky asked. “What gang?”
“No, I’m wife. Signalman outfit.” This pidgin English was catching.
“You wife? No good. All time cook, no pay.”
Maybe he had something there! Nevertheless Cooky, Mr. Candy and I became good friends, and I went back to the 713 carrying a luscious berry pie and a loaf of homemade bread. Both of them seemed to have a lot of respect for me because I chose to live with my husband in an outfit car.
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Her outfit car (#713) was a roughly refitted baggage car coupled to a semi-derelict boxcar (#787) which served as a tool carrying car. It was part of a larger work train with bunk cars for railroad workers. It came with a boarder (her husbands assistant), a bedroom with a paper thin partition and door, a kitchen with a coal fired stove, a small living room and a shower fed by water from storage tanks on the roof. Restroom facilities – an outhouse (“The Dream House”) with no direct connection to the car.
The world Kay found herself in was that of railroading up close, personal, gritty, dangerous, exciting and in a constant state of change. Her front door was only 6 feet from the mainline which meant a 24/7 parade of thundering locomotives and cars, ringing bells and shrill steam whistles. Since the work train went where work was needed the moves were frequent and the destinations, more often than not, were desolate railroad sidings a long way from nowhere.
The author’s adventures covered the full spectrum of life’s chance encounters (giving first aid to a member of the work train who was badly cut in a knife fight, knocking on the door of a diner car stopped on the mainline to ask for and receive a pound of coffee, suffering through odoriferous weeks parked on a storage track next to a large holding pen for cattle awaiting shipment by rail, etc.) and her compelling writing style brings all of them to life for the reader.
It should be noted that both she and her husband wrote a book about their experiences on the railroad. She provides the railroad homemakers perspective and in his book (30 Years Over Donner) her husband, Bill Fisher, provides the workman’s perspective. To the best of my knowledge they are the only husband and wife team to do this.
I think this is a very well written book and it should appeal to both the person interested in stories about working and living on the railroad and to anyone interested in reading about one of the more unusual ways of housekeeping in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. See Common Knowledge for an example of the writing style. (Text Length – 170 pages, Total Length 177 pages includes supplement) (