1930s wreck at Boyce

[NW Mailing List]

Hello all:

Barbara Adams wrote her recollections about growing up in Boyce.  She was born in 1937.  Her paternal grandfather and grandmother were Sylvester and Helen Lane.  Sylvester was the third agent-operator at Boyce, working there between 1933 and 1952.

Maude and Roger Strode were Barbara's paternal grandparents.  When they were first married, they lived in a white stucco house by the railroad tracks near the Old Chapel Road crossing, which is about 1/5th of a mile north of Boyce station.  They told Barbara "...about a bad train wreck in the early 1930's at the crossing by their house. Injured people were brought in the house," and Barbara still has a Pullman blanket that was used to cover an injured person in the yard."

I've been reviewing microfilmed newspapers but haven't discovered a news report about a Boyce accident.  It must have been either train 1 or train 2, both of which passed through Boyce around midnight and had a NY-Roanoke sleeper.

Has anyone heard of a train accident at Boyce?  I'd appreciate any details, or even just the year it occurred, to narrow my newspaper search.

Best wishes,

Frank Scheer
f_scheer at yahoo.com