#52Ancestors, Disaster

August 10, 1887.

Three things happened on this day, and one thing didn’t. The first two seemingly unconnected.

Grass fires were set by section men along the Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway.

An excursion train left Peoria between 7.00pm and 8.00pm stopping at stations on the way for passengers who had paid $7.50 for the round trip to Niagara Falls.

It was summer, the grass was dry and the weather warm and windy.

Now here is the thing that did NOT happen: nobody checked the fires – the foreman although he had been instructed to do so, did not.

The excursion to Niagara Falls was very popular and the train was at maximum capacity. Many passengers had come from Iowa to take the trip and some planned to go on to Canada and New York. Emma Duckett, wife of the local doctor in Forrest and her sister Eliza Cording were just two of the hundreds of ticket holders,  and boarded the train in Forrest. Reports say it was speeding along at about 35-40 miles per hour as it crossed the Livingston county line, trying to make up for lost time.

The train was due to arrive at Chatsworth at 10.23pm but was running late and it was about 11.45pm when it finally got there, stopping for a few minutes before carrying on into the night.

Between Chatsworth and Piper City there was a shallow ditch, about 12 feet wide and 6 feet deep. The railroad crossed this via wooden trestle bridge. The ditch, a dry stream bed, was filled with dry timber and leaves.

Remember the unchecked fires ? 

By the time the driver saw the burning trestle it was too late. The first engine crossed the bridge, but its weight caused the bridge to collapse behind it. The second engine rammed into the bank, cars crashed into each other piling thirty feet high. The sleeping cars at the rear were not as badly damaged. The second engineer’s watch stopped at 11.54pm.

Emma was one of the 80 passengers who were killed outright. A further 120, including her sister, were injured. Initially estimations of the loss of life were far greater and it was reported that Eliza was also among the dead. The first relief train arrived from Forrest about an hour later, Dr Daniel Duckett was amongst the group on board. One of the first bodies he came upon was that of his wife.

Others had run from Chatsworth and Piper City to help. Women bought linen and bandages for the wounded and assisted where they could. It started to rain at about 3.30am and rained until dawn almost two hours later. Some of the wounded and some bodies were taken by train to Chatsworth early in the morning. People arrived at the scene through the night and into the next day, searching and hoping to find their loved ones.

That other not so endearing side of human nature was evident at the crash site too. Opportunists stealing from the dead and wounded; in some cases leaving nothing to identify the person by. Photographers from the newspapers turned their backs on the suffering and turned their cameras on the ruins. I am often shocked at the invasiveness of today's media, of the relentless pursuit of paparazzi to get the “money” shot. Seems things weren’t so different 150 or so years ago.

Emma Venn Norman was born about September 1847 in Luxborough, Somerset England. Her father was the youngest brother of my 3 times great grandfather; she was a first cousin of my 2 times great grandmother. Emma emigrated with her parents and siblings between 1851 and 1859 to Canada and later to Michigan and Illinois. On 10 July 1869 she married Daniel Duckett in Livingston county Illinois and they had two (possibly three) children. Daniel died a few short years later in 1890. Their son went on to study medicine and followed in his father’s footsteps.

There are many accounts in newspapers all over the US of the trainwreck, even in New Zealand papers (albeit in October). I wonder if my great great grandmother saw the reports. Did anybody write back to England telling the cousins they barely remembered of their devastation ? Did anyone pass on that sad news to her cousin Sarah in New Zealand ? Perhaps Sarah never knew what fate delivered to her kin that day.

Google will find you lots of information if you are wanting to read more.

#52Ancestors, Week 12, Misfortune

Misfortune. Lucky one week, unlucky the next ? A series of unfortunate events ?

Some years ago while doing some searching “alongside” my 4^th cousin in the UK about the family line we share, and more particularly her branch of that line we came across a very sad discovery.

Two of my great grandmother’s cousins; brothers, moved their families from Wolverhampton to Glasgow around the turn of the century. The elder brother went first with his wife and young son between 1894 and 1897. About ten years later the younger brother followed with his wife and three young children.

Arthur and Martha (yes it’s true) had already lost one baby aged about eighteen months before travelling north. On the 1911 Scots census it stated that they had had eight children but only four were living. That itself was quite sad to learn. The determination to go on, to have more babies when you have lost so many in infancy, just astounds me.

From ScotlandsPeople we had built a picture of their family including the “unknown” children who had lived briefly between 1901 and 1911. Then an email arrived from my cousin to say she had been doing some more searching.

She had purchased the death certificate for Martha, who had died in February 1930. Martha it seemed came to an unfortunate end, so the search of newspapers began to see what might be uncovered. And this is where the misfortune became apparent.

The newspaper reported that Arthur had come home in the middle of the day for his dinner and discovered the grisly scene. It was reported that Martha was greatly upset about the death of her daughter Emma who had died earlier in the week and been buried the previous day. The timing of Emma’s death had brought to the surface the memory of another daughter who had died aged sixteen, just three years earlier.

What was going on here ?

But, this was a double tragedy as Martha did not just take her own life, she also had inflicted serious injury to their youngest daughter who died soon after Arthur had arrived home. Martha’s despair must have been enormous, and the guilt for Arthur; that had he been moments earlier he may have been able to avert the tragedy.

This led me to use up my credits on ScotlandsPeople and purchase more death certificates. The names of the unknown babies were discovered and the causes of death for their children.

Martha Agnes	23 November 1905	16m	Broncho-Pneumonia 28days Cardiac Asthemia 1day
Charles	13 January 1907	7w	Premature Birth Asthemia
Frederick	9 March 1909	6m	Acute Bronchitis Convulsions
Minnie Mildred	9 February 1927	16	Percarditis ? Endocarditis, Cardiac Failure
Emma Elizabeth	4 February 1930	30	Embolism of Heart
Martha	8 February 1930	56	Haemorrhage, cut throat
Martha	8 February 1930	11	Haemorrhage , cut throat
Arthur George	9 July 1932 –	31	Cardiac Failure, Acute endocarditis, Mitral Stenosis

It all pointed sadly to a genetic heart defect, seemingly passed on to at least six of their children.

How difficult must it have been to live with that, and how unjust must it have seemed that you lost so many babies. In December 1906 when baby Charles was born, Arthur’s seventeen year old unmarried half sister Ellen was staying with the family and gave birth to her own daughter at their home that month.

I wonder how each mother felt, one bereft and one grateful.