Son of a Traveling Man

By Cody Burdette

My book is about growing up, in a Railroad family My Dad was a railroad Engineer, so I got to do what most boys dream of, I got to ride in steam locomotives cabs with my Dad, he would even let me run them sometimes. I went to work on the railroad right out of High School. in 1956. I ended my railroad career on the Cass Senic Railroad in W.Va. I collect and restore old steam locomotive whistles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888323403

Book preview

cover.jpg

Son of a Traveling Man

Cody Burdette

ISBN 979-8-88832-339-7 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88832-340-3 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Cody Burdette

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Home to Swandale

Homeward Bound

Recalling the Great Depression

The Stream

Return to Swandale

Farewell to Steam

The BC&G Railroad and the Last Stand of Steam

Children of the Woods

Firing on the Grade

Loneliness

Gettysburg

Out on the Trail

The Passage

Where Eagles Fly

The Section Hand

The Mechanic

The Rain

The Engineer

The Young One

About the Author

Acknowledgments

This book would not have seen the light of day if not for the support of these people: Barbara Graham—a true friend—and my children:

Christine

Eric

Julie

William

Natalie

People of Swandale traveled by railbus, according to our author. He says the B car usually was reserved for the owner, J. G. Bradley.

Home to Swandale

Writer Cody Burdette recently returned to the site of Swandale, Clay County, where he grew up. He found nothing remaining of the town but memories everywhere he looked.

* * * * *

These are some of the things I remember about my hometown. My family moved there in 1950. I remember my first day in Swandale. It was when I thought it was the end of the world. It was so far back in the country. To make matters worse, it rained for what seemed like a month. But I gradually adapted to my new home, and it left a lifelong impression on my mind.

My father was the log-train engineer at the Elk River Coal & Lumber Company sawmill there for many years. My first real job was there. Landis Jarvis and I would coal up the log engine each evening. We would shovel eight tons of coal from a coal car into the engine's coal tender. We earned seventy-five cents apiece.

Then I got a better job, a job that was hard to get. I was hired to clean up the big band mill each evening. I earned eighty-five cents for about an hour and a half of work each day. I remember the good smell of fresh sawdust mingled with oil and steam.

As I stand here today and look over the weeds and the old foundations of what used to be a town, the ruins are not what I see. In my mind's eye, I see rows of neatly kept homes, a large company store where you could see the things of the outside world, a barbershop, and a locomotive shop. I see a team of horses pulling a wagon loaded with store goods, which they are delivering to certain houses. I see them delivering coal to each coal house in the whole town on other days.

My mind is flooded with memories of cold winters spent here, joyous sleigh rides, and then the endless summers of boyhood. I remember the sweat, blood, and tears of this little town. I hear the sawmill as it slams and bangs the big logs around and the whine of the band saw as it makes lumber out of the logs. I hear the clatter of lumber buggies on the wooden docks as the green lumber is taken down the docks where it will be stacked in neat stacks. Then the dry lumber buggies bring the cured lumber back up the docks to be loaded in boxcars for shipment.

Through all these memories run images of girls and boys playing, working, and enjoying a much slower life than we have today. How I wish I could return to those days when everyone had time for one another. This was before television and refrigerators, when the battery-powered radio was king. I remember the endless hours of playing chase in the mill at night. I remember girls I was in love with who have somehow been lost in time. I recall taking them to the once-a-month movie in the gym. I see and hear the boys with whom I spent long summer days swimming, hunting, and sometimes chopping wood for neighbors for twenty-five cents an hour.

As I look over this old town, now so still, it's hard to believe what all went on here so many, many years ago. I wonder what has happened to such friends as David and Frank Truman; Landis Jarvis; Del Frame; Jim Jarvis; Mary Jane Rogers and her sister, Margaret; Shirley Smith; Polly Perkins; Diggey Mullins; and Margaret Truman. I know they left to seek their dreams elsewhere. I wonder if they ever found what they were looking for, or did they realize they left them behind at Swandale?

I remember that the troubles of the world were settled and put to rest each evening on the porch of the boardinghouse. I remember the time the company hired special men to climb high to paint the three smokestacks at the mill. We boys would talk to them after supper at the boardinghouse. What tales they would tell us!

Some of my fondest memories are of going with my father on the log train to the woods. There I got to watch men load the train. On the return trip, after Dad got the train out of the woods and back on the mainline, he would let me run the Shay engine for a few miles. On Dad's days off from the train, he drove the company truck to deliver lumber to the Charleston area. I often went with him to help unload. I was proud of my father, and it seemed so good to have the privilege of going on these trips with him.

Then all too soon, I was a man. I got my first full-time job with the company. I was a hostler and night watchman, two jobs in one, but I didn't mind. As a hostler, I had to fire up the log engine each Sunday night, coal it up the rest of the week, and keep it hot all night. At about 5:00 a.m. every day, I would clean the fire, rake the ashes out of the ashpan, and get the engine ready for her crew.

I remember warm summer nights with soft rain falling in the early morning hours, the sounds of the night, and the sweet smell of the lumberyard as I made my rounds. It was great to be alive. I was doing what I liked to do and getting paid $1.15 an hour for doing it.

Above: Swandale was a family town, according to the people who remember it. This Bible school class was photographed in the 1950's. Photographer unknown.

I went to work at 6:00 p.m. and got off at 6:00 a.m. As a watchman, I made a trip each hour, on the hour, to twelve different keys to punch a clock that I carried. The keys were located throughout the mill, at the company store, and down the lumberyard. I remember warm summer nights with soft rain falling in the early morning hours, the sounds of the night, and the sweet smell of the lumberyard as I made my rounds. It was great to be alive. I was doing what I liked to do and getting paid $1.15 an hour for doing it.

I remember passing by the boxcars being loaded for shipment and peeking in their open doors to see if they were about full or not. I always wondered where they were going and who would be unloading them. I remember the long, cold winters I spent on this job. My rounds with the clock had to be made in all kinds of weather. I remember the high winds when you had to watch for loose boards and pieces of tin being blown off the lumber stacks. I remember the deep snows I trudged through each hour of the long night. I remember the times I got soaked with cold rain.

I know we cannot live in the past, but we have no future if we have no past. Each of us has a Swandale to go home to.

But back then it seemed good, and I was proud of my job. After each round, I had a little time to loaf in the boiler room at the mill. It was warm there. I would lie on a board in the sawdust and listen to the three big boilers as they simmered and gurgled through the night.

I remember sitting in the engine cab after taking the engine up the track to clean the fire. I would park it beside the log pond and watch the night turn to dawn. I remember how the fog would rise off the mill pond; and as I sat there in my engine cab, waiting for the steam pressure to rise, I was king. Sometimes I would wonder what my life would be like twenty or thirty years down the road. I would think about leaving Swandale for a better job and then returning