Selling Cows to the Railroad

I don’t know a lot about my great-grandmother ‘Katty’ - short for Katherine, except for stories about her. She died when I was about sixteen or so. That’s the way it is with older generations. They seem so ancient to younger generations two or three times removed, that the generations can never find much in common. Grandma Katty lived in a small wooden framed house near the railroad tracks in a small farming community in south Georgia, not more than a crossroads really in my time. But at one time it was a thriving community with a cotton gin, railway depot, a church or two and other accouterments of turn-of-the-century life in the rural south I understand.  The turn of the century being the one from the 18th to the 19th.  Her son, my grandfather on my mother’s side, was born in 1885 to give you some perspective.

I distinctly remember Grandma Katty’s corncob pipe, and either that or a lip full of snuff seemed to be part of her whenever I saw her. She kept a small vegetable garden and a couple of cows, chickens and maybe a few pigs on three or four acres of land. The garden was fenced and there was a small board-and-batten shed in serious need of repair to one side. Her house was not much better, always seeming to need a coat of pain in my memory. I believe Grandma Katty pretty much fed herself from her little homestead, although she also had help from other sources from time to time. She had children, of course, six or seven if I remember right. I’m a little sketchy on the ones who didn’t live nearby. One daughter, my great-aunt Rachel lived only about a mile and a half away and kept a pretty good eye on her mother from close by.  Other children lived within about a thirty-mile radius, while some lived as far away as Jacksonville, Florida and beyond.

Grandma Katty was a tiny woman in her old age, perhaps 80 or 90 pounds. I never saw her without her apron and old-fashioned bonnet. I don’t believe she ever was a very large person. But, all her sons were huge, big men, my grandfather being well over 6’-4” tall, and his brothers pretty much the same. Her daughters, on the other hand, were all reasonably sized women, even 'dainty'. I’ve thought it a little telling that my grandfather married a tiny little woman himself, not much bigger than Grandma Katty, and together my grandfather and grandmother raised one son themselves of 6’-4”. It is a fact too that my first wife was a tiny 95-pound woman herself, so there’s that. Odd is it not? I am - or was when I was younger - over 6’-2," and maybe large men are drawn to smaller women somehow as a control measure for keeping members of our species a reasonable size. I do wonder if there’s something in the DNA that guides that sometimes.

But back to Grandma Katty.  She gave birth to four boys that I know of and I believe at least one more who grew to maturity before my time and died before I was born. It was very common in those days too, for rural women to have several children who died from various causes when they were babies or quite young. My grandmother, for example, buried at least four children under the age of five and raised to adulthood five more. The local graveyard was and still is, full of tiny grave markers.

Three of Grandma Katty’s boys worked for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL) at one time or the other (now absorbed through two or more iterations to CSX).  The ACL’s main line ran about two hundred yards right in front of Grandma Katty’s little homestead. Her son William (‘Willie’), my grandfather, was an engineer on the ACL and he told me it was not unusual in the early days (the 1920s - 1930s) for him to stop a freight in front of Grandma Katty’s house for a quick visit. There was a small railway depot there until the late ’30s or so too. I believe things were a lot more informal and relaxed back in those days.  Everything seemed to move along at a more sedate pace in my boyhood in the ‘forties for damned sure.

My grandfather retired from the railroad in 1957, sorely disappointed and irritated that the ACL had replaced all its steam engines by diesels by the middle ‘fifties. Yes, diesel locomotives were more convenient and comfortable, but he just didn’t feel the same pulling back the throttle on the diesel as he did those front-end throttles or Johnson bars on steam locomotives. He had nothing but contempt for the ‘Deadman’s Brake’ which diesel engineers of the time were required to keep their foot on at all times. He said that some engineers boarded their locomotives with a brick in their satchel (“or, Grip” as my grandfather called it) to hold down the deadman’s brake in lieu of their foot - thereby inadvertently famously allowing a train or two to crash before they changed that system.  I’m almost certain that my grandfather, being the man he was, very likely carried his own brick in his grip, although I never saw one.

Grandma Katty was widowed in 1909 and never remarried. I think most of her children were out of the house by the time her husband died, or nearly so, and I also believe she lived in a bigger house when she had children, moving to the smaller cabin after she was widowed, but I’m not exactly sure about that. She lived alone, and had a little help now and then for her garden, mostly from her sons or sons-in-law who lived nearby. I suppose she had a little income from social security too, and maybe some financial help from some of her children and grandchildren too from time to time. I know everyone seemed to love her and doted on her, although she had a reputation for being an extremely stubborn and contrary person when she felt that way. Everyone definitely had a lot of respect for Grandma Katty either way.

The story I like best about Grandma Katty is how she gained extra income from the railroad. My grandfather would always laugh as he told the story. Seems that when money got a little tight, Grandma Katty would sometimes ‘sell a cow to the railroad’. In fact, she was notorious for that and being that three of her sons worked for the railroad she was able to sell a cow to the railroad any number of times.

The way Grandma Katty’s cow auction worked is she would select one of her cows - the oldest, sickest or most worn out cow, and tether it between the railroad tracks until the train came along. It all seems pretty heartless now, but her reasoning likely was the cow was going to die soon anyway, maybe after being sick for a while too, so Grandma Katty was actually doing that cow a big favor. When the train came along hooting and sounding its whistle to no avail, it would hit and kill the cow. Thereupon, Grandma Katty would submit her claim to the railroad for killing her cow. She must have found a way to get rid of the evidence of the tether one way or the other. On the other hand that probably didn’t matter since one of her sons would likely be running the train in any event. Maybe she knew how to keep track of their schedules?  I just don’t know, but my grandfather said she sold four or five cows to the railroad one year, causing the railroad detectives to mount an investigation. That scared her so she sold the railroad only one or two cows the next year.  Grandma Katty had ceased her practice of selling cows to the railroad by the time I came along, but her stories lived on in the local lore.

Grandma Katty went on to the great cow/train auction in the sky in her ‘nineties, famous for being a stubborn, contrarian, innovative and enormously tough old gal who could give lessons to many of today’s ‘strong’ women. I’m proud to be the descendant of such a colorful and strong woman who weighed less than 90 pounds!

A woman like that is definitely a power to be reckoned with.