Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

A recent article on Bloomington’s depot reminded former Bloomington resident Don Versaw of his railroad memories of Bloomington. This week’s article features his letter recalling those memories:

“It was a joy to see your story about the Bloomington R.R. Station, along with the amazing photo of the visit of the Kansas City Booster Club. If that is the only photo ever found of the station it will at least be something.

“I feel remiss for not having made pictures of it when I had chances. I don’t remember of ever having done so. It’s just too bad. Maybe I was just too lazy to hike on down with my post card camera and take a photo like I should have. I expect Jesse Malick suggested that I do that because he was very good about giving me ideas for pictures during the time when my interest in Photography was just beginning to emerge. Alas! I didn’t and I am sorry and I’m a person who feels the loss of not having some good records of that part of town.

“I have memories of it though and they’re very clear ones. I remember Mr. Rutledge and his vehicle that he used to ‘taxi’ people to and from the depot. Albeit the memories are vague because it was a very long time ago and I was just a small child. I can see his old place on the higher ground north west of the depot. It was something of a hotel, perhaps akin to a present day bed and breakfast. I don’t think I was ever inside it.

Recollections of the depot and the trains are much clearer. I was fascinated with everything about the magnificent old steam trains and their whistles that echoed up the hill clear across the village to where we lived on its northern most edge. To go anywhere on the trains was a marvelous experience. Nowhere was far enough or lasted long enough for me. My mother Lucy Versaw sometimes took me with her to Riverton to visit our relatives. No ride in Disneyland could ever be as exciting. The sharply dressed uniformed conductors who visited each passenger and punched their tickets always impressed me. I believe the fare during the late 1920’s was two cents per mile for adults and children went for half fare. Watching those grand engines approach the station and roll into the station on wheels larger in diameter by twice or three times my height, the giant cylinders gushed clouds of stream was a sight never to be forgotten. Seeing it was only part of the thrill. The sounds of the bell ringing constantly and the giant two toned whistle still rings in my ears.

“The descriptions of the depot inside and out by Florence Muckel are just as I remember them. I always thought the trim was a very dark green rather than black but whatever the combination, it was classic and no other colors I ever saw in depots and stations years later ever seemed right. The smells inside the waiting room were accented by the sound of the telegraph keys that are so clear in my memory. They came from the residue of the coal burning engines spiced with the several spittoons located conveniently about the place. I can’t say it was a pleasant smell, but it was certainly distinctive. No other building in Bloomington had such an odor. The waiting room décor is worth recalling. The ‘art’ was always the huge calendars showing trains passing through scenic wonders found only in other places unknown to small boys. The charts of the months on them were large enough to be seen with the naked eye a mile away. Then, there was the big wall mounted pendulum clock that seemed to be impervious to the vibrations of the passing trains and kept time as keenly as the best Hamilton railroad conductor’s watch.

“The depot was a place of great mysteries for a young boy. How things worked and what tasks were performed there must have prompted enough questions to keep parent s busy all the way home after visiting the place. My parents never had an automobile during my younger days. Dad took us to the train by horse and wagon. It was slow and sure and gave ample time to ask questions. I always wanted to know what the telegraph was ‘saying,’ and what was behind the ticket window from where all that clatter came from. One day in the future that same telegraph brought the heart-breaking news to my parents that I was missing in action. It was the conveyer of ever so many sad messages. But, it also brought good news and timely warnings, as it did during the Great Flood of 1935. The contents of the Railway Express storage room also excited my curiosity. It sometimes held the coffins of people I never knew, awaiting the final ride home to rest eternally with their loved ones, but it also contained gifts from thoughtful relatives and friends who lived far away-everything from apples to venison. One of the things too big to store in the storeroom was an entire house. It was a gift for my cousins Earl and Florence Versaw’s wedding. It was already for assembly, no batteries included, and was erected on the Golden Rule Ranch, which was located seven miles north of Bloomington. In a sidelight, the number of young chickens that came to Bloomington on the train are numberless. I think Swanson’s could have started there.

“I don’t remember a ‘Bloomington Zephyr.’ The great streamlined trains of the early 1930’s were a sensation. When an excursion of one made a run through town it attracted a great turnout. I don’t recall my first or last ride on a Zephyr, but I’m sure that I made them.

“My last ride on any train was a trip in summer of 1937 from Oxford to Bloomington, when I was returning from the harvest fields of eastern Colorado. The longest trip I ever made was from Bloomington to McCook to visit Aunt Rose and Uncle Otto Harris, a distance of 100 miles. I was 12-years old and it was my first trip alone on the train. I was not alone very long and met some other kids my own age-one of them was a pretty young girl. That of course made the trip much too short. I would have been willing to travel several hundred miles more or to where the female charmer was going.

But…understand of course, that was only because traveling on such a wonderful train is something to be remembered. Don Versaw.

I’ve learned-

That just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.

I’ve learned-

That maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you’ve had and what you’ve learned from them, and less to do with how many birthdays you’ve celebrated.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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