About 10 o’clock on a Friday evening in April 1926, Louis Riley Burns climbed on top of a boxcar in Texarkana, Texas. As a switchman for the Cotton Belt Railroad, his job was to get on top of the cars and give signals to the engineers and conductors on the ground.
But on this evening, April 9, something went wrong in the switchyard and he ended up on the ground, where he was fatally wounded. An article in the Shreveport (La.) Times said that Louis “fell from the top of a box car and was badly mangled by the wheels of other cars passing over him.” Found on Newspapers.com
Many years later, my grandmother, Omelia Burns, told me the story in more detail. “Somebody turned a boxcar loose on the wrong track,” she said, “and it hit the car that he was standing on and threw him off. The train ran over him and literally cut him half in two.”
Under the circumstances, he should have died instantly. Somehow, my grandmother explained, he didn't. “They got him to the hospital and he lived a little while, miraculously.”
He was still able to talk when he arrived across town at the Cotton Belt Hospital, in Texarkana, Arkansas. He asked one of his friends to see after Pearl, his wife, and their three children. The newspaper article said he died about midnight, two hours after being run over in the switchyard.
Louis Burns was my great-grandfather. My grandfather, Terry Lee Burns, was only 16 when his father died. Terry also worked for the Cotton Belt Railroad; he had been on the job for two weeks when his father was killed. He stayed on with the railroad, but didn't exactly follow in his father's footsteps. Terry became a clerk and worked in an office--no riding on top of boxcars for him. His widowed mother told the superintendent that she couldn't stand another loss and asked for a less dangerous job for her son. Except for a couple years in the Navy during World War II, he worked for the Cotton Belt Railroad almost 50 years.
Louis Burns was my great-grandfather. My grandfather, Terry Lee Burns, was only 16 when his father died. Terry also worked for the Cotton Belt Railroad; he had been on the job for two weeks when his father was killed. He stayed on with the railroad, but didn't exactly follow in his father's footsteps. Terry became a clerk and worked in an office--no riding on top of boxcars for him. His widowed mother told the superintendent that she couldn't stand another loss and asked for a less dangerous job for her son. Except for a couple years in the Navy during World War II, he worked for the Cotton Belt Railroad almost 50 years.
Sometimes, when you study family history, you end up knowing more about how someone died than how they lived. That’s the case with Louis. I know he was born in 1883 or 1884 in Alabama. In 1906, he married Pearl Obelia Chisum in Mississippi. As a railroad worker he moved around to different places: Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas. In addition to Pearl and 16-year-old Terry, Louis left behind two daughters: Rosa Gaynelle Burns, 14, and Anna Laverne Burns, 11.
Other than these simple facts, I know little about the man. I have never even seen a picture of him. I know that Pearl and all three children lived the rest of their lives in Texarkana. Pearl died in 1961; Anna died in 1971; Terry died in 1995; and Rosa died in 1997.
More:
- Cotton Belt Railroad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Southwestern_Railway
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