Grandfather Bert worked for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, commonly known as the L&N. One job he had was as a fireman - that's the guy who fuels the engine's furnace - with wood in early days; with coal by the turn of the century. I don't thing he was the one to actually shovel the coal - he gave the order. The furnace heated the boiler that produced the steam power to move the train. It was an important job. The heat in the firebox was controlled by the fireman and that in turn was a critical factor in maintaining the boiler pressure.
In later years Grandpa worked as a "Walking Boss" or "Straw Boss" on railroad construction projects. It was his job as an overseer to keep the crew working. Most of the crew were black men. Mom said he was not supposed to do physical labor, but was unable to stand by without taking a hand, and often joined in anyway. He was a good worker and he had good jobs and made good money but it was too often wasted on booze and the family was often in want.
Bert Frank’s life spanned the period when railroads were in the forefront of National events. His parents house was next to the tracks; he grew up with trains, traveled, worked and lived on them. The L&N ranged far into the south, and one of his jobs involved the double tracking of the line coming north out of Alabama. There was a lot of mining through that area and the lines were being improved to support that industry. Again, most of the labor crew were blacks, and Grandma said it was a shame the way the railroad treated them. She said that many lay buried in unmarked graves alongside the tracks .
The family lived in railroad cars for several years. The white employees were assigned passenger cars parked on side tracks, while the blacks were relegated to box cars that had a few small windows. Preparation for moving was simple; the stove pipe was taken down and the stairs brought up. Mom was born in one of those railroad cars. She remembers Grandma telling her that Grandpa carried her to the stove and she cooked breakfast for the family right after she was born.
Companies crisscrossed the continent laying thousands of miles of track. Most of this building commenced after the Civil War and continued into the Twentieth Century. The railroads reached their peak in the 1930’s and then started to decline. It was a boom time and many men got rich, but it was also tumultuous with much poverty and hardship. Grandpa Bert quit working for the L&N in 1917 when the family moved to Hooven, OH, but that did not stop his romance with trains.
The town of Hooven, sits in the southwest corner of Ohio, just thirty miles from Cincinnati. Catawba was across the Ohio River, about the same distance south of Cincinnati. The family went by rail on visits home. Roads in those days were rough and tiresome, and trains more convenient. On one of their trips the train stopped in Covington, Kentucky, with a layover of several hours before they could transfer to another train. The family got off, and had lunch near the station, but Grandpa got fidgety after a while and decided to look up his cousin Buddy Austin. Buddy was one of his old carousing friends from the past so Grandma was anxious as to the likely outcome should the two get together.
GO TO: Part 3e, Bert Rides the Rails
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