R. H. Soule at Roanoke

[NW Mailing List]

Peter - 

Since “Soule” is not a common surname, might it be possible that your ancestor was kin to a Robert M. Soule, long-time Southern Railway employee at Chattanooga and long time heavy lifter at the TVRM?  I believe TVRM’s shop in Chattanooga is named for him.  

I knew Bob back in the 50’s when he was railfanning the Gainesville Midland in Georgia with Paul Merriman.

EdKing

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 1:34 PM
To: NW Mailing List 
Subject: R. H. Soule at Roanoke

Good Morning Abram,

This is an excerpt from my great-grandfather's autobiography, "Haps and Mishaps" which mentions Mr. R. H. Soule.



          "Mr. [Charles] Blackwell left [the Shenandoah Valley Railway/N & W] and went back to Canada and Mr. R. H. Soule was made Superintendent of Motive Power. Things went along pretty smoothly for a time, then Mr. Soule began to suspect that the purchase of supplies and equipment was not being handled quite honestly. He began to keep confidential records. After some months of quiet watching and investigating he laid some facts before the general manager and was pooh-poohed and told to mind his own business. He would not rest and gathered a lot of data, which he kept secret till he was ready, then resigned and demanded a hearing before the board of directors, got it and was sustained by the board."



Unfortunately, my g-grandfather did not use a lot of specific dates in his auto-bio. I have spent a lot of time trying to date events he mentions and I think Mr. Soule's arrival pre-dates 1891.



The Roanoke Times mentions that Mr. Soule and my g-grandfather returned to Roanoke from business in Radford on 21 Jul 1894. During his years in Roanoke my g-grandfather organized several chamber music groups (he played the cello which he took up while attending engineering school in Cassell, Germany). In the second of those groups, Mr. Soule played first violin. [See the attached photo.] In the photo Mr. Soule is seated at our left, then Mr. Loeb and Mr. Yeatman and my g-grandfather is standing behind them. The trappings of "genteel society" had to be created from within in those days in Roanoke. They also put on several of Gilbert & Sullivan's comedic operettas besides sponsoring a variety of dances. Periodically, professionals were brought in from outside but for the most part local talent was used for entertainment.

I'll go back through my g-grandfather's photo albums and see if I can find anything more on Mr. Soule.

Peter Getz



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