This is a reprint of original articles by Hugh Woolley, a longtime resident and community leader of Graceville. Woolley published these articles in The Graceville News more than 20 years ago.
Originally published in the June 14, 2001 edition of The Graceville News.
Many families made their living from the railroad. Two of my next-door neighbors fall into that category. The father of Annie Lee Clark and Sue Adams was Bill Bullock who was a hostler. The hostler is the man that made the trains ready for the engineer and the conductor to take over. Annie Lee told me that during the watermelon season, Bill would have as many as 11 men working with him. Some of these men were Boots Williams, who was Tootsie Ezelia's father, Bud Williams, Mr. A.D. Simpson and also Sanders Watford who was the father of Glenn, Radius, Charles and Doyle Watford and also Mrs. Earlie Garner. Mr. Sanders later became an engineer and had a regular run to Georgiana, AL, which is Hank William's hometown. Doyle Watford told me about the seniority system of train men and how a man with the longest employment could roll another employee for his job. Some railroad employees would get transferred all around. Doyle said, "There were nine children in our family, six were born in different towns, and the other three were born in Graceville." Mrs. Watford got so tired of moving around and Mr. Watford quit railroading and went to work with the turpentine company.
Doyle said that the term "he was railroaded" came from the railroad seniors rolling their fellow workers to different locations. Doyle also told me that the first check he received was from painting watermelon stems with some kind of solution to keep them from ripening so fast in shipment. He said Mr. Claude Tindel gave him this job when he was about 13 years old. Doyle also remembered his first cheek was about $28. The Johnson brothers (Hosea and W.L.) also worked with Mr. Claude loading and shipping watermelons.
The Bullock family received a double portion from the railroad as Mr. Bullock built a large house on Cliff Street just below the railroad. The Bullocks would furnish a bed for the train men who had to lay over for several hours. The cost of the bed was 35 cents, and a good home cooked meal was 25 cents. Annie Lee also said, "We as children had to be quiet during the day as some train men slept." The old landmark house burnt a few years ago. I believe in the middle 90's. I asked Mrs. Clark about train engineers and she replied, "I remember a Mr. Butler and a Mr. Walker."
I remember a number of section hand houses that were built along the railroad on the south side of tracks just across from the peanut mill. Annie Lee tells me about a man named Bailey moved in as a section foreman (the man who keeps the tracks up). Mr. Bailey had some girls about the same age as Annie Lee and sometimes he would, between train runs, take the girls for a ride in the hand car. Mrs. Clark said sometimes they would go as far a Esto. A hand car was powered by two people facing each other pumping the mechanism that pulled the car. By being on rails they could probably get up to 20 miles per hour.
Bill Gavin who grew up in Noma told me when he was a boy and could get hold of a dime, that he would catch the train in Noma and ride to Graceville. Then he would ride back to Noma having had a delightful day. Mary Evelyn Watford told me that there would be a number of her school children that had not ridden the train, she said they would save up their dimes and would ride to Noma or Esto and have the school bus pick them up and return to school.
Annie Lee also told me it was easier for them to shop in Montgomery than Dothan. There wasn't a paved road to Dothan, and they had free passes on the railroad. She said they could catch the train at 4 A.M. and return about 10 P.M.
Joe Bill Hodges told the story how one fireman cooked his breakfast. He said that the fireman would wash off his coal shovel, break his eggs into the shovel and hold this over the hot coals in the firebox of the engine.
Joe also said the coal yard was Northwest of where the Quickway store [Express Lane] now stands.
To Be Continued...
PHOTO CUTLINE: Roy Bullock, his father, and Sanders Watford
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