Some in the Ozarks call it "The Knowin' Way". Whatever it is, they had it. Nathan Jaques, my great grandfather once worked in a hotel, I think in Arkansas. While sleeping, he was wakened to see a woman walk through the closed door of his room. She was dressed in white and touched his cheek gently. He was paralysed and couldn't speak. She turned and floated out over the transom and there was a loud banging on the door. He leapt up to answer it and it was a boy with a telegram saying his sister had been killed! We don't know which sister, Molly, Alice or Odie Jaquess (That's not a typo, they spelled it with two 's'es, then later one) it was, but we believe it might have been Rebecca Jane, an aunt never mentioned during my grandmother's lifetime. Grandmother was Elsie Belwood Jaques. The family spelled the name differently every generation, it seems. Years later, around 1920's when Nathan was working on the Frisco Railroad, his son, Millard Nathaniel Jr. was playing on the floor beside his mother and siblings, Elsie, Marvin, Mildred, and Harold (Ray and Beulah were not born or were infants, yet) when suddenly he rose bolt upright and said clearly "Dad in a wreck!" "Oh, don't be ridiculous!" Lenora told him, "You're making that up!" "Dad in a wreck!" Junior insisted, speaking clearly, despite his speech impediment. He was mentally retarded and seldom spoke. Nobody thought anything else of it until the next morning when two men from the Frisco brought Nathan home on a stretcher. He had been involved in a train derailment and had been thrown off the top of a boxcar. He had a broken foot and leg. The wreck had happened at the time Junior had spoken of it. My Aunt Mildred says it's the only time she ever saw Lenora faint. The Jaques/s family had a house on 100 East Pearl Street, just off the Frisco Riptracks in Monett Missouri. Mama (Elsie) told me that she could hear the hum of the refrigeration plant from that house. I have a picture of it also. When I get them uploaded to Photobucket I'll share all my images. Another story I have involves another accident -?- BISHOP Probably a brakeman who worked the same lines as Millard Jaques. The story goes that he was riding in the caboose with Millard and the crew. He told them he was going to go "up front" to chat with the engineer. He went "up top" and walked toward the engine at the head of the train. He was gone an awful long time and at the next stop the fellows in the caboose asked the engineer where Bish (their nickname for him) was. The engineer said "well, boys, I haven't seen hem! I thought he was with you." So then they did what every railroadman hates. They went back along the train, shining a lantern at the wheels. Sure enough, somewhere in the middle, was blood and in the paint of the boxcar they found long scratchmarks! Bish had fallen from the train and gone under the wheels. They then sent "Jake" (millard's nickname) back on a return train to find the body. They found Bishop, nearly cut in two, along the ballast and tracks. He had dragged himself to the side of the tracks, laid his gloves carefully beneath his head and died. The train crew laid his body on a "grain door" which is a partition used to separate loads in a boxcar and told Millard "Jake, you're gonna have to ride back to town with him." and Jake agreed to. He sat with the mangled body of his friend as the train continued to its destination. When the train would jiggle or hit a rough spot the body would sway and Millard would say "Now Bish, you just stay put. We're almost there.". Anyway, Millard remembered poor old Bishop ever after. If there are any descendants, I *might* have a picture of Bishop. There are two photos of Jake and a train crew standing next to an engine, #1231. None are identified except Jake, but there's a chance that Bishop might be one of them. When I get the photos up. I will tell you about the locket that saved a life. Winisdatter. And yes, for those who think these stories sound familiar, if you've been hunting the Internet for Frisco related stuff, I originally published these on Rootsweb. Anyone else have Frisco ghost stories to tell?
I've heard and seen some odd things along the Central Division one evening. It was about two years ago when Brandon Scaggs(Best Friend) and I were walking the line through Rudy, AR heading to his home. We were about to cross the line when the crossing guards came down and the light went off. We heard the sound of a steam whislte but a train never came. I absolutly have no ideal what could have done this? It may have been a prank, but no train ever came down that line!!! I think back now and wish I could have seen that "Steam Train" roll out of the town and head north toward Winslow. Ship it on the Frisco!!! Murphy Millican
Well, the photos are up... what I can find right now... and here is ther story of that locket. My great grandparents, Millard Nathaniel "Nathan" Jaques and Lenora Celesta Hartung Jaques married in 1905 in Arkansas. They lived in Monett, but , like many people, took the train to Fort Smith AR because of Arkansas' more liberal marriage laws... no waiting period. For their first anniversary, while pregnant with my grandmother, their firstborn, Elsie, Lenora went into Springfield MO and bought a little gold heart shaped locket with a tiny chip diamond in the center. In it she placed a tiny picture of herself. Granddad was delighted with it and wore it proudly on the vest chain of his watch. It can be seen indistinctly in the two pictures I have uploaded and I have it, still. Well, since he was a brakeman at the time, of course he had to go up on top of the cars to turn the wheel to set the brakes, this being before the days of Pullman brakes. it was deadly and dangerous to climb up there, sometimes in icy or rainy weather, with the cars swaying and rattling, but *up* they must go, the brakemen, if the train was to stop! One day they got the whistle signal to brake, and "Jake" as he was known, scrambled up top to set those wheels... it was icy and the car top was slick. As he started to walk toward that big wheel, he hit ice, fell onto the boxcar roof and began to slide! he clawed frantically, feeling his legs go over the edge of that car... when something caught, just long enough for him to reach up and grab a handhold... painfully he clambered to safety on that moving car, got to the wheel and turned it. Then he climbed back down to the caboose, still shaking from his fall. As he righted himself and straightened his clothing, he looked at the heart shaped locket... across the front was a straight, diagonal dent in the gold! When he got back to Monett, of course he told Lenora about his brush with death. She picked up the locket and said "Well I'll go to Springfield and have the jeweler fix that old dent, good as new!". "Oh no you won't, Darling... Your love saved my life today, and that heart bears the marks of it. The dent stays!" With that, Millard put the watch and chain back into his pocket and today I'm holding it in my hand, looking at that same dent. The locket is now on a bar-pin, somewhat like a medal, with an inch long segment of Granddad's watch chain still attached. Inside are two pictures: the same little image Lenora put there back over 100 years ago, and a tiny image of Granddad, which their daughter, my grandmother put in when she inherited the locket. The watch and chain are still in the family as well, passed down through another branch. Go check out the album. Sylvia Stevens
ADDENDUM to the "Bishop" story! Yesterday, I found a reference to a DISHMAN, William in a Barry County Coroner's report (but you have to send away for the image and I'm in bankruptcy, so that's out) what I gleaned was: Dishman, William Means of Death: Train. Found on Rr Right of way beside tracks in dying condition. Died in Frisco Hospital Springfield. I'd bet ANYTHING that THAT is the man my great grandfather sat with! What he must have said (misheard by a child) was not "Now Bish, hold still," but "Now DISH..." Sadly I am at sero income and no way to get the report. If anyone on this board knows of a William DISHMAN who died next to the tracks, THAT is his story. Winisdatter / Sylvia
