Tragedy On The Rails

Genealogy, to me, is more than gathering names and dates; but also trying to bring the people to life by putting flesh on their bones and telling their story. Such is the case of one Epenetus Owen, a Methodist Minister, who was the brother of my great great great great grandmother, Sarah [Owen] Hogeboom. The only information I had to start with were a couple of notations in the large Family Bible, handed down through the generations to my grandmother, Nellie Ruth [Hitchcock] Renner. Also, 4 loose pages from another Bible that were in the large Bible. The large Bible is now in my possession.

I have always been curious about Epenetus [ 1815-1890 ], and I knew from the Bible he married Sarah Maria Reed in 1843. I also assumed he was a Minister since the Bible refers to him as Rev Epenetus Owen. My first break was finding a family history book*  ** that Ancestry has in it's collections. Page 576 lists Sarah Maria Reed married to Rev Epenetus Owen. Page 610 lists more info on Sarah and Epenetus and names their 3 sons, including a son that died in infancy. Page 663 lists family details on their remaining 2 sons including their wives and children.This is where the tragedy occurs. Arthur Lyman Owen, Sarah & Epenetus' grandson, and his wife, lost all three of his children, between the ages of 5 - 9, on 27 February 1917 in a "railroad wreck".***

The children had been staying a few days with their Aunt, their mother's sister, and her husband. Word came that their Aunt's father, the children's grandfather, had died on February 26th so the children along with their Aunt, Uncle, and other family members went by train to New York for the funeral.The children were to meet up with their parents at their grandmother's home, but the reunion never happened.

A freight train missed signals and plowed into the end of a passenger train carrying the children and relatives. The car that was impacted was the Sleeper Car and no one in that car survived. Another relative had the gruesome task of identifying all 9 of his family members including the children.

My heart breaks for the poor grandmother of the family. Not only did her husband die, but several of her children and spouses, and all of her grandchildren, died in that train on the way to her husband's funeral. I know first hand the grief of losing a husband, but cannot begin to fathom loosing so many of my children and grandchildren on their way to the funeral.

The irony is that I made this discovery on 24 February 2017, just three days shy of the 100th Anniversary of the train wreck. As tragic as this is, it's one of the reasons I love genealogy. It puts the flesh on the bones of these relatives and brings them to life. It tells their story and mine.



 *{source: Ancestry.com, North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 [database on-line] Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, 20116}. 

**{ book title: Reed-Reid Lineage; Captain John Reed of Providence, Rhode Island, and Norwalk, Connecticut, and his descendents through his sons, John & Thomas: 1660-1909} 

***{Google Search for: 27 February 1917, Mt Union, Pennsylvania}