Dear All,
I am Jim Pearce's son. I wanted to thank you all for sharing Dad's stories. I have not heard many of these. When he got home after a long stint on the road, he was usually too tired to talk railroading much. After he retired, I would talk with him some about his work, but as I live in Tennessee most of our talk was over the phone or on our yearly visits home to Colorado. So much of our time was devoted to family talk and such. I do have a couple of stories though..
Dad almost did not become a railroader for two reasons. First, his grandfather (my great grandfather), Joseph Brice, was an engineer on the D&RGW from Silverton to Chama from about 1900 to the mid-1930s. Grandpa Brice was very unhappy that Dad had applied to work for the railroad. He told Dad (in a very strong Irish brogue) that he never had a demerit while working for the D&RG and he did not want his name sullied by his grandson, if he should ever get one. To my knowledge, Dad never received a demerit. Second, due to seniority, Dad worked intermittently for the railroad in the early 1950s. So, one of his jobs was running a frontend loader for the Vanadium Corporation in Durango. One day the brakes failed on the loader and it went backwards off the loading dock. The bucket came over and hit Dad after he had jumped clear. It crushed his pelvis and put a 3 inch hole in his leg. There were no real orthopedic surgeons back then, but the doctors at Mercy Hospital there in Durango rigged up slings, braces and such to help him mend. He eventually was able to return to work and then to go on to railroading. The hole in his leg would bother him the rest of his life.
The other story was of Dad making a run between Chama and Durango. In the mid/late-1950s there was an oil and gas boom in NW New Mexico, near Farmington. Much of it encompassed the Ute Indian reservation. Many of the Native Americans became moderately wealthy because of the gas found on their land, and bought very nice cars and trucks with their money. It was not uncommon for the RR to deliver freight to Native American customers by simply stopping at a crossing and off-loading items. Dad was working on the run (not sure if he was firing or if he was the engineer), and when they stopped at a certain crossing, he helped with the freight. It so happened that a Ute gentleman was there in his brand new Buick Roadmaster. When Dad went to put his items in the back seat of the car, the gentleman told him to put the boxes in the trunk. Dad opened the trunk and, to his surprise, noticed the back seat was missing and three sheep were housed where the passengers would sit. Dad loaded the boxes, and when he asked the gentleman about his sheep, he was told that the man’s truck was not running, but the Buick was great for hauling livestock. He always smiled when he told that story.
Again, thank you all for your memories and condolences.
Mike Pearce
