Sunday, April 20, 2014

Memorable Easters

Easter Sunday April 7, 1958, our family woke early to a huge train wreck about a half mile from our farm in Sardinia, Ohio.  The Pocahontas Trail of the Norfolk and Western railroad still runs through the farm that connects Norfolk, Virginia to Cincinnati, Ohio.  Maybe my sister remembers but I think we went to church that Sunday but we sure couldn't get to the Sardinia First Presbyterian Church the normal way, a half mile east on State Route 74 as it was called then.  The road was blocked from the two huge trains that hit head on that morning.

I remember the wreckage but couldn't find any pictures or a complete story online.  I think at least two men were killed in the wreck but I don't remember all of the details.  I know it made travel difficult for quite a time until they got the cars and engines moved off the two crossings on State Route 74 in town, the one near us and the one east of town to Ellis Feed Mill.

I would have been 7 years old and Linda would have been 4.  Our brother Jeff would have been a newborn, born the month before.  We had just moved into the new ranch style house that was built on the Bare Plantation farm.  Mom still lives in that house and it became the Winkle Farm in 1990.  Grandpa moved into the old plantation house in 1918 when dad was almost 3 years old.

"Frank W. Hunter (1874-1939) lived in Arizona, and his wife, Lila, inherited.
Frank was married several times and had three children that I read about. The one I have written about before was Ralph “Phoy” Hunter (1908-58), who was a fireman on the N&W Railroad and was in the train wreck at Sardinia Easter Sunday, 1958. Ralph and his wife are buried in the Mowrystown Cemetery."  That is also where grandpa and grandma Winkle are buried.

I can't remember if those were steam engines or not when diesels came in around that time?
 
I imagine most of you can remember an Easter Sunday in your past.  I think my friends in Minnesota still have snow on the ground and it is getting close to planting time!
 
I leave you on this note, "Easter is not only the greatest Christian feast; it is the fulfillment of our faith as Christians. Through His Death, Christ destroyed our bondage to sin; through His Resurrection, He brought us the promise of new life, both in Heaven and on earth. His own prayer, "Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven," begins to be fulfilled on Easter Sunday."
 
Happy Easter!
 
Ed Winkle
 
 
 

3 comments:

  1. May you and your family have a happy Easter as well.

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  2. I don't remember many Easter Sundays before my grand-parents bought their country house and we had the memorable and fun egg hunts. My grandfather would make 2 small holes at each end of a raw egg and suck them dry, so we could have empty shells to boil in onion peels and decorate. We had lots of chocolate before then of course, but we were living in a part of the city that was not really conductive to great memories.
    My grand-father became a whole different younger man after they definitely moved into their country house, I think he was missing gardening and the country lifestyle. My grandmother did not seem so happy when I think about it, probably because she saw the family only occasionally during the holidays, and because she had a great job in a whole "brigade" of women at the school where she was a cook, responsible for all sauces among other things. I still remember her finger-licking beef tongue sauce, a kind of gravy sweetened by just the right amount of tomato. It's something I regret not having discussed with them (their happiness, not the sauce), we take our parents and grandparents as granted as a child, not as regular human beings, and then we move out of their lives with our own problems before we have much time to discuss this kind of things. At least that's how it worked back then, I sure hope families are more communicative these days.

    One French food tradition of Easter, is the Sunday spring lamb roast, or Paschal lamb, usually a leg of a 5-6 month old lamb, called "gigot" in French. The lamb symbolizes the sacrifice of the innocent Jesus, and was frequent on the menu of Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter. French races of sheeps have been selected for the gustatory quality of mutton meat since the 18th century, and lamb meat since the 19th. The roast is usually served with flageolet beans (a type of dry beans that is lightly green and has a delicate unique taste), or with roast or puffed potatoes. Not many other spring vegetables in the garden at that time...

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  3. Happy Easter Ed & Family, We attended Mass at St. Michaels Apostle church in Gahana ,Oh and then took #270 to 23 north and just up a ways on #23 was a massive old church and buildings but we didn't see any name on it-was on way too Delaware---kevin in ontario

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