N&W in 1909--Death

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
October 15, 1909

SAD DEATH OF CHILD ON PASSENGER TRAIN
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Enroute to Work With Wife and Babe When Death Occurred

    A pathetic incident occurred yesterday morning on passenger train No. 12 from the Clinch Valley division of the Norfolk and Western between Tom's Creek and Coeburn when Maggie Fain, the eight months old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Fain, died of spinal meningitis.  The father is a miner and was going to Dante to secure work.  The child had been sick for several months, and its condition was critical when its parents left Norton for Dante, but the father had been promised work, and he felt it incumbent upon him to go and take the little sufferer and her mother along.  The family is very poor, and Captain John ?? [last name blurred on microfilm], conductor on the train, showed that his heart is in the right place when he made a donation.  The passengers followed suit and a liberal purse was made up.
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[If anyone wonders why the family was on the branch line from Coeburn to Toms Creek in the course of a trip from Norton to Dante (pronounced "Dant" locally), it is because No. 12 regularly made a side trip up the branch to Toms Creek and back to Coeburn on its way from Norton to Bluefield.  The couple would have transferred to the C. C. & O Ry. at St. Paul in order to reach Dante.] 

Gordon Hamilton
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