By Bill Beach – Victoria, B.C.
Everyone has an earliest childhood memory. You may or may not think about yours much, however, mine was a terrible occurrence and is unforgettable. It happened at the age of three in 1944 and is still with me.
I was born in June, 1940 in Fleming, Sask., a small town of about 150 residents at that time. Life was good for us kids growing up then. Even though a war was raging in Europe, it was far away and well-beyond the understanding of young children.
Kids were free to play and roam from one end of town to the other. The rule was “just be home for mealtime and bedtime.” Of course, in a small town, everyone knew each other and the moms knew everyone else’s kids. Collectively, they kept an eye out for everyone.
Fleming is situated three miles (five km) from the Manitoba border. Both the Trans-Canada Highway (No. 1) and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) ran through the town. The Trans-Canada was just a gravel road in those days.
Several trains passed through the town every day and they were a great fascination to us young kids. We’d watch them, listen to the steam engines chugging, and sometimes count how many cars there were. We’d wave like mad at the engineer and the conductor and sometimes, they would wave back at us!
Young friends walked the rails
We would also put overlapping pennies or bottle caps on the tracks and see how many would stick together after the train ran over them. Walking on the rails like a trapeze artist was also fun – seeing how far you could walk before stepping off the rail. It was on one of those rail-walking days that disaster struck.
I was walking with two friends, William “Billy” Wood and Robert “Bobby” Ruthven, close to the train station on a breezy day. We didn’t hear the train come up from behind us.
I must’ve heard the train at the last second, as I managed to grab hold of, and cling to, the station’s platform in that small space between train and platform. My two friends didn’t hear the train and were hit. Both boys were killed.
The station agent rushed out to scold me for being in such danger. He then looked up the track and saw, as I did, the mangled bodies of two little boys. One was his own son, Billy.
The train–a short passenger train–had come to a stop a hundred metres further along the line and the train conductor was running back to the station.
I jumped on my tricycle and peddled uptown to my dad’s hardware store as fast as I could. My mom had just heard of the accident news from a local farmer who’d picked up his cream can from the station. I guess she was relieved to see me peddle into view.
Though it was a long time ago and I was very young, I still remember and think about it to this day.
Editor’s note: The focus of The Senior Paper is on upbeat and heartwarming memories, however, we recognize that tragedy is part of life experience. We have published this story online because we feel it is important to have available for posterity.
