6.0 Changing Times
Brandenburg Station
Louise Dowell of Ekron, KY wrote about the days of train travel and the stations. The Meade County Messenger printed her story April 11, 1984. The memories of Frances Roberts Whelan were tweaked by the photograph of Brandenburg Station, and she clipped the story to save and read again. She often talked about meeting friends and cousins at Brandenburg Station.
The Dowell story recalls the sights and sounds of those long ago days: "All the small towns the train ran through or near had a depot...
The architecture for all of them was very much alike. They were mysterious looking little buildings, the kind that would make anyone, who didn't know, wonder what was inside.
"They had one large waiting room with wooden slat-like seats around about two-thirds of the wall and lots of windows. We could see in all directions. A large coal stove stood in the middle of the room."
She remembers the ticket agent's window being in the back of the waiting room and it had iron bars over the opening. While Louise speculates that the agent may have been responsible for occasional sums of cash, she believes the back room more likely stored mail bags in addition to being filled with freight to be shipped. The agent had a type of wagon with high wheels and very large iron rims on the wheels.
"The ticket agent pushed it with his own power to take the freight to the train. The ground was very level, well covered with small creek pebbles. He seemed to know exactly where the train would stop.
The depots and trains were a part of the social life. I never knew where the trains met, but the passenger train going toward Louisville was called the 'up' train, and the one going toward Owensboro was known as the 'down' train." Anyone who stayed in the station long enough would meet both trains."
Besides being a gathering place for the teenagers, their parents often came to the depot to visit with whoever might be there.
"One year when my cousin, Nannie Catherine Allan, was attending high school at Ekron, she invited me to visit her the last week of school. Because of road conditions, it was necessary for girls who had very many miles to travel to stay in Ekron from Monday morning until Friday afternoon. Parents would rent a room from families. Often two girls would share the room, and this they called light house keeping.
"But I want to tell you when Aunt Nell got our food packed for the week, there was nothing 'light' about it. She could make the best loaves of yeast bread of anybody. A large bowl of butter fancied up on top, a jar of jam, bacon, eggs, ham and a chocolate cake was in the bundle.
"In the late afternoon around train time the kids come out of the woodwork. I took complete advantage of the whole week with nothing to do, but have fun."
The little girl loved watching the dressed-up women get off the train.
"The wore long flowing skirts. They couldn't possibly get down the train steps without lifting them a little bit. And there were these full ruffled petticoats that were prettier than the skirts anyway, and the shoes were hightop, high heel, pointed toe, with a row of buttons all the way up the outside of the shoe. There was no way these ladies dressed in a hurry. It took a special hook to button the shoes.
"I see beautiful blouses today that look very much like the ones in that day with ruffled cuffs and neck lines with black velvet ribbon ties. They were called shirt waists then.
"But, Oh! The hats. The ladies wore every shape you could think of, trimmed with ribbons and flowers, sometimes miniature fruit-like clusters of cherries or grapes. Always lots of feather, or plumes as they were called. They might be any color trailing in any direction, or maybe straight up."
Young Men See Opportunity
Trains put America on the move
Young men courted their sweethearts by way of train travel. They also left home during the awful years of the Great Depression to find jobs in far away locations.
From left, Claude Jupin, Beckham Powell and James Powell decided to give this new Ford Coupe a washing in Buttermilk Falls after going after going from Brandenburg Station to Detroit to buy it.
Irvin A. Whelan shows of fhis ‘brand new’ used car. Frances Roberts Whelan says he paid $125 for his ‘wheels.’ Baby brother Wilson is perched precariously on Irvin’s shoulders in front of the Whelan Homeplace in Flaherty, KY.
Lucy Board was driving this new Model A Ford in 1914. Sitting on the running board: Louise and Loraine Blake. Carl McHolland.
Garages soon seen as necessary
From French for “act of docking” with Germanic origin, “from garter to dock” comes “garage.” Irvin A. Whelan stand, with the family dog, in front of the new garage built to shelter his parents’ Chevrolet touring car.
Automobiles bring roads; new way to travel
Henry and Willie Allen holding William. Harry Smith and Alonzo Coleman.
On July 21, 1969, Irvin A. Whelan stopped a minute to reflect the passages of his life time. “We went to church in a wagon pulled by horses,” he mused. “Now they are walking on the moon.” On that July day Neil Armstrong took a step out of the Apollo 11 lunar craft to become the first man to walk on the moon. Irvin laughed as he recalled being eleven years old, running in front of car and getting hit. His leg was broken.
“...it would kick....”
by James William Bondurant
to Jimmy Stone, February 23, 1994
from Woodspoint Newsletter
I was just a boy...when my father drove our first car home. It was a "Model T Ford," 1917 model -- the kind you you had to crank -- no self starters then. There were no paved, hard roads, just dirt roads, dusty when dry, and muddy when it rained. The only way you kept dry if it started raining was to put up the side curtains. There were three pedals you worked with your feet, the clutch on the left, the reverse pedal in the middle when you wanted to back up, and the break pedal on the right when you wanted to slow down or stop. You fed the gas by hand under the steering wheel -- gas gadget on one side, spark lever on the other side. If you didn't adjust the spark lever right when you were cranking the car to start it, it would kick and sometimes break your arm. There were lots of broken arms back then. But I enjoyed driving a car, and enjoyed driving the nice cars they have today.
