'The conductor's watch'....

James Foley, conductor on the Lehigh Valley left this world while at work one day, but the legacy of his watch continues...on and on...

‘The conductor’s watch’

 

                    A ‘short’ by Stanley Swan

 

From 1930 to 1944, conductor James Foley had been one of the conductors on the

Lehigh Valley, a rail line that ran thru a good portion of New York and Pennsylvania,

delivering both passengers and freight. James was a good natured fellow, a little

overweight, his shoes usually scuffed up a bit, but he was as jolly as one could be as

he helped passengers up the two steps and onto their respective coaches.  There

wasn’t a person that Jim wouldn’t help. Being gone several days at a time, with his

home base of Shortsville, N.Y., Jim was always anxious to get home to spend time

with his two boys Edward and Peter, and they in turn couldn’t wait until he was

back home, even if it was maybe for just a day or two.

 

At age 13,  Edward was the older of the two sons and the admiration for his father

was unparalleled . He could do no wrong in his father’s eyes, and Ed constantly

talked about following in his father’s foot steps…. to be an engineer or a conductor

on that mighty rail system. Peter, was a bit shy but had the best grades in school.

 

All was well with the family until a tragic afternoon in October of 1944. The train, his

father on board, failed to make a turn going thru the hills near Allentown. The

train faltered, left the tracks and went into a stand of trees. Thirteen people, in-

cluding James Foley were killed.  The Foleys were devastated. Edward and Peter

and their mom put on their best faces the day of their dad’s funeral, but it was

a total feeling of emptiness that engulfed them for the next several weeks.

 

Then, out of the blue, almost two months later, a special delivery came to the Foley’s

home. Ed and Peter, just home from school, signed for the parcel and quickly ran

into the kitchen to find their mother who had just taken a pie out of the oven.

 

“What’s all the ruckus?” she asked.  Peter and Ed handed her the package remarking,

“It just came special delivery… can we open it up… can we?”

 

Their mother, scanning the package noticed it was from the home company of

Lehigh Valley and had the familiar stamp in the corner she had seen so many times

over the years. Opening the package ever so gently with the boys on each side

of her, a box appeared with a letter attached to the top. She read the following

out loud to the boys who were now so intent on it’s contents,

“Dear Mrs. Foley.  The enclosed items were found in the final retrieval of company

belongings from the site of your husband’s accident several weeks ago. The two items

are your husband’s railroad watch and his company note pad he had in his possession

that day. We again submit to you are utmost condolences and apologize that it has

taken this long to return them to you. Please call us if we can be of any future

assistance. Regards, Richard Campfrey, President.

She looked closely at the items, immediately recognizing both. “Edward” she said,

“you, being the oldest, should have your father’s watch,  and Peter, here is your

father’s note pad and schedule. Please please, both of you, cherish and take care

of these items… they were and are part of your father, his life, and your legacy.”

She rose quickly, holding back the tears and left the kitchen as Edward and Peter

started looking over their dad’s last possessions of the job.

Edward opened the watch face and looked at it’s glass and detail, it was beautiful

indeed. Peter started to scan thru his dad’s notepad and train schedule…noticing

several hand written notes that he immediately recognized as being of his

father’s hand.  Within hours, both boys had stowed their new found gifts in their

secret hiding places, and the days and months started to tick away.

 

Twenty years passed quickly, too quickly. The boys both grew up, became men

and each left their small hometown to seek fame and fortune.

Both Peter and Edward became successful in their respective fields, but neither

found the railroad business to be their destinations.

 

From the time Edward became an adult and left home, he carried his father’s

railroad watch in his pocket. It kept perfect time, and never failed to get him to

his appointments. But once a year, on his father’s birthday, the watch would

suddenly stop, and only on that one day each year. And the stop was always

between 3:20 and 3:30pm.  Edward shirked it off for the first few years, but after

it became a yearly event that started to spook Edward, he decided to have the

watch inspected.  At a fine jeweler in NYC, Edward had the watch cleaned,

tuned and inspected. It was a perfect piece. In fact the jeweler wanted to

purchase the watch, but Edward wouldn’t think of it.

 

While visiting his aged mother one weekend at the old home in Shortsville,

Edward started to look thru the family photo album, which contained many of

his father’s papers. One of particular interest was a copy of his dad’s birth

certificate. Upon it, Edward read the date and time of birth: Sept 18, 1903

at 3:24pm.

 

Edward’s hands seized up as he read the script. That was almost the exact

time that his dad’s railroad watch was stopping each year.  

Edward dropped the birth certificate and continued to pour over more files

and photos. In the last part of the book Edward found a copy of the news

article of his dad’s train wreck.

Looking at the faded newspaper article, he read “Thirteen people were killed

near Allentown yesterday when the afternoon Lehigh Valley train headed

on the southern tracks, left them suddenly just after 3:20 pm and crashed

in a stand of young poplar trees.”

 

Edward almost stopped breathing. His dad’s birth time and death time

were within moments of each other. What are the chances of that being

even a remote possibility?

 

Edward didn’t share any of the particulars with his mother. She was getting on

in years, and her mental capabilities had been greatly diminished over the

the last several. She had really never fully recovered from Jim’s early death at age 41.

 

So Edward continued to carry his father’s railroad watch, knowing that it

still assisted him to arriving at his appointments on time..… unless of course it was

his father’s birthday…. and maybe that was just his father trying to tell him

to take the day off, breathe the air, feel the day’s sunshine, and remember

his times as a child and when he wanted to be a conductor on the Lehigh line.