Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1901-05-13
A RAILROAD WOMAN.
The Only Female Trainmaster in the
World.

| World.
Buffalo EXPRESS Sometimes rail-
road companies depart from all rules
and traditions and make innovations
that to say the least, are rather
startling" said an old railroad man.
| tits only few years since the
Southern Pacific saw the sudden
collapse of what seemed very
promising experiment, yet the results
SO far are very satisfactory Ten or
| a dozen years ago old Charlie
| Croker as he was Familiarity called
| by almost every employe OF the
! Southern Pacific, as a reward for
particularly daring and meritorlous
act, prevailed on the directorate OF the
Southern Pacific to educate young
girl. She had lived almost all her
| life in the mountains of New Mexico,
with almost no associates except
| her father, an engineer, and his fire
man. She was railroad girl from
top to toe, and her knowledge OF rail
road craft enabled her to avert what
would have been a most frlghttul
wreck. Her reward was an education
such as few girls in her station Of life
ever obtain. EVERYTHING one OF the
finest educational institutions in the
west could do was done for her, and
at the completion of the college term
she was, at her own request. given
postgraduate course in mechanical
Engineering. Her schooling finished,
she was given a position in the office
of the superintendent of motive power
at a nice salary, that was looked on
| by the men in the Office as a. kind OF
pension. 1t was supposed that she
would, in Office parlance, hold the
chair and that her time would be
occupied by purely technical duties,
but the young woman soon proved
that she was worth more than her
salary One day, within year OF her
graduation, she submitted plans and
specifications for a new type OF
! engine. There were a number OF
| ideas in the plans and some decided
| improvements, and it was just the
thing the company had been looking
for. Some of the best mountain
passenger engines the Southern
Pacific ever had were built from that
set of plans. 1t was a rude shock to
the masculine element in that office
that the girl should carry off the
honors they thought we're safely their
own, and then they fell to wondering
what this phenomenal girl would do
Che did uho+ %hou oil do If
the right man comes along. One day
big official of an eastern railroad
came through the Office. No one
ever knew how it happened, but the
bright light Of the motive-power staff
snapped mechanics for matrimOny.
An experiment with the new woman
was closed, and the first lady
mechanic was transformed into what
she is today-a very happy wife.
mot until a little over two years
ago did the staid old management take
another plunge into officially unknown
waters. Then, when Spanish treach-
cry raised the cry, Remember the
Of Uncle Sam were at boiling point, 0.
Pcase, the trainmaster at ella Bend,
N. NJ, jumped out and put his name
on the muster roll Of the LIST territory
cavalry. Before he left he wired his
resignation and turned the Office over
to his wife, who, for years before her
marriage, had been telegraph
operator on the line. All her married
life she had been doing more or less
of the clerical work of the office. ella
Bend is a little place in the middle of
a long division, lonesome as only
coal and water station in the great
American desert can be, and it was
almost impossible to keep clerk
there for any length of time. In the
interval between the departure of one
clerk and the arrival of his successor,
Mrs. Pease learned all the details of
the office work, and, on the departure
of her husband, it was very handy
knowledge. Just at that time the
road was rushed to it's utmost capacity