Chapter Six
Emporia


Still reminiscing about locomotives brings to mind Emporia, Kansas. Why? Well, Santa Fe had a Roundhouse in Emporia. A Roundhouse was a maintenance and storage facility for locomotives and featured a large turntable much like a lazysusan. The above picture isn’t the Roundhouse in Emporia but shows the turntable with the maintenance/storage building on the left. Since early locomotives weren’t designed to move backwards it was necessary to have such devices to turn engines and train cars around. Emporia was a turnaround location for trains to turnaround and head back to their point of origination. Often the railroad personnel would have a layover at the turnaround destination. That’s where my memories are connected. My grandfather and grandmother on my father’s side had a large home about a block from the rail yards and they let out rooms on the upper floor to the railroad workers for their layovers.

My earliest memories of my father’s father is of him being bedridden. Early on in my memories, he died and going to his funeral service was a bit spooky for me at a young age. Consequently, I don’t know too much about my grandfather on my dad’s side. As for his mother, I do remember her. I don’t have to many memories about her but I remember her as a pleasant and happy person. There are a couple of things I remember from her home. I remember her “ice box” and I don’t mean a nickname for a refrigerator. I remember the ice man coming to the house with a large block of ice that went into a compartment at the top of the ice box which allowed the cold air to settle down into a lower compartment where the food was stored. The iceman was a common fixture in those days just like the postman and the milkman. Yes, they used to deliver milk to your door. The iceman had these huge tongs with which he would grab a hold of these large blocks of ice from the back of wagon like truck and hoist it up on their back to bring into the house. He had a large rubber pad on his back to protect him from the cold and wetness of the ice, but still a lot of those men developed back problems from those years of hours a day hauling that ice on their backs.

I remember that my grandmother had a picnic like table and bench in her backyard on which we would have family gatherings. Both in Emporia and Cherryvale I remember family gatherings being a big part of my childhood. When I say “family” I mean not only your immediate family but your aunts, uncles and cousins. In those days with no TV, iPods, video game consoles and concerts you didn’t have any choice but to get together and entertain each other. Today we’ve become such a modular, transient and high tech society.

My aunt Maude and uncle Fred lived across the street from my grandmother. Aunt Maude was an older sister of my dad. Uncle Fred owned the local golf course and they had a son named Ted who became quite a golfer. After a tour in the Navy he was able to play and do pretty well in pro-amateur tournaments. I believe Gary caddied for him once or twice but I never did. I’ll talk a little more about caddying later.

There’s one more cast member in my memories of Emporia. My aunt Helen who was my dad’s youngest sister. I have fond memories of her. She spent most of her youth being a caregiver for my grandmother and taking care of the large home there by the rail yards. Happy to say that later in life she was able to find a mate and get married. In the next chapter a little more on Cherryvale.