Excerpts from Part I:
Lehigh Days, 1922-1928

The Poker Game: Geneva, 1924

Whenever I was working in the Geneva area, my brother Lester and I used to visit around and play poker. One place we played was at Jake and Pete DeMell’s gas station.

One night there was a new player I had never seen before. He wore a fancy straw hat, and almost every time it came his turn to deal, he seemed to have a winning hand. I watched him carefully, and finally saw him slip a card off the bottom of the deck. So I stood up and leaned over the table and knocked his hat across the room. Then I said, “The next time you do that, your head will go with your hat.”

He picked up the hat and left, and never did show up again.

Skinning the Cat : Ithaca, c.1926

It was the Friday before Christmas in 1926, and we had just finished stringing a telephone line from Sayre to Ithaca. We were due to go home the next day, and to celebrate the occasion, three other linemen and I went to the Ithaca Moose Club.

I was in pretty good physical condition in those days, and was able to hook my fingertips on the thin board above a door and skin the cat. My buddy Ed Orcutt would usually suggest to somebody at the bar that I could do it, and would bet drinks on me.

When going out to bars back in those days, I always carried my pliers in my hip pocket in lieu of brass knuckles, which were against the law. It was a matter of personal safety, and they were in my pocket that night.

As the evening wore on, I did the trick a number of times, but by my last attempt, I had imbibed quite a few. Just as I was putting my feet through my arms, my fingers gave way, and I landed hard on my back pocket. But I got up, and after the fall sobered me up a bit, I did the  job anyhow.

For a long time after that, I was convinced that I still had the imprint of those pliers in my butt.

Death in MacDougall: c.1928

The Lehigh tracks from Pittston, Pennsylvania to Manchester, New York were known as the Seneca Division. My railroad pass was good on any train except the Black Diamond Express, but only on the Seneca Division. If I wanted to go to Buffalo or New York, I had to apply for a trip pass.

Anyhow, one weekend I was waiting to get from Sayre to Geneva on a local self-propelled car that followed the Black Diamond. I was acquainted with a Lehigh detective by the name of Mort Henderson, and he was waiting to get to Buffalo on the Diamond. He said he could make it good with the conductor for me to get to Geneva, and did so.

The Diamond followed the main line to Van Etten Junction, branched off to Ithaca on the Ithaca branch, then on to Geneva Junction, where it again joined the main line. Once up the grade out of Ithaca, it always picked up speed, going about 70 miles per hour. Over around Romulus and MacDougall, the power was cut, and the train would coast into Geneva Junction.

As we approached MacDougall that day, we suddenly heard a loud crash. I was sitting next to the window, and looked up quickly enough to see what I thought was a body flying through the air. We felt the train slowing, and it finally came to a stop a long way down the track. Mort and I got off and walked back to the crossing, where a man’s body was just being put into an ambulance. A woman’s body lay along the track, and a little girl’s body lay a short distance from the track, partially in water. I wanted to move it from the water, but was told not to.

We later learned that the man who drove the car had been raised around MacDougall, and had returned for a visit. The family had just left a garage near the tracks, and had been cautioned that the Diamond was due."

Excerpted diary entries and memories from Part II:5,000 Miles in a Model T; 1928-1929

Arose at 9:30 and went out for breakfast. Came back to the house and began packing. Had supper and played cards with the Schnirels during the evening, then came home and continued packing for the start of our journey to New Orleans. Total miles 2,328

(Lester) We thought we might find work in St.Petersburg, but after three weeks we still hadn’t found anything, and we got discouraged. So we thought, well, let’s take off along the Gulf. We’ll just keep going until we find work.

Monday, January 21: El Paso. Arose at 9:30, went after the
mail and ate breakfast. Had the oil changed in the Ford and
filled it with gas. 4,347 miles.

(Lester) But before we went on, we drove across the border into Juarez, Mexico.

(John) We stopped at the El Centro Café. Had a beer and noticed there was gambling next door at the El Tivoli.

(Lester) We didn’t have much money left—very little—and I got into a poker game. It was a big stakes game—table stakes. You could bet anything you had in front of you and take that portion of the pot if you won it. I did pretty well at first. I think I made twenty-five or thirty dollars right away.

(John) I got into a dice game while Lester played poker. We met at the bar about an hour later and found we had made about thirty-eight dollars. Stopped at the bar on the way out just as some man was buying drinks for the house after hitting the
double eagle on the roulette wheel.

(Lester) So we had a couple and then decided to go back and gamble some more. But I didn’t understand the table stakes part of it very well, so after a while I lost everything.

(John) Met at the bar and discovered that we had only a dollar twenty-two cents left between us.

(Lester) We were broke.

Route Maps of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
(Click on images to view larger)

To order large-format prints of Windmill Design Studio’s new Lehigh Valley Railroad maps, email Patrick Meehan at patrick@patrickmeehangallery.com.

Lehigh Valley Railroad System Map

The Seneca Division Map

The Mahanoy and Hazleton Division

Station listings

(Click on images to view larger)

To order large-format prints of Windmill Design Studio’s new Lehigh Valley Railroad maps, email Patrick Meehan at patrickmeehangallery.com.