The Train Ride

When I was little and in my young twenties, the train was a very popular mode of travel. You didn’t have to watch for other drivers, didn’t cost much, and it was very comfortable. If you were going a long ways you had a choice of getting a berth so you could sleep or you could sleep in your seat. They had dining cars where you could eat sometimes, fancy meals or you could carry a sack meal with you.
My mother and father traveled by train frequently to visit my grandparents and my mother would take the train and meet me at the depot in Cleghorn and we would travel together to Sioux City to meet my sister. Then we would go out for lunch or shop. It was great fun.
Little folks were always told that they needed to act grown up and be ready for school because they would get a train ride when they started Kindergarten. That was not necessarily propaganda. All the kindergarten classes would get on board the train with their little sack lunches and ride to a little town outside of Cherokee. Help me out here, folks, maybe Marcus or Meriden? Anyway it was a short trip, but it was such fun.
My stepfather worked for the railroad for many years and so did his son. One night his son had a dining car brought to Sioux City to treat my mother and her family to a royal feast. Once again the white linen table cloths and napkins, fancy china etc. My mother loved it, it was very nice.
I wish you could see each little face in this picture, but this is a picture of the depot as it was when I was in kindergarten.