It was probably because of Theodore’s job that the Wallaces had a telephone
installed in the late Twenties or early Thirties. I believe the Western Maryland
required it, finding that it was too expensive to have a man come to the Wallace home
to tell TA (or Cap, or Tommy), as his fellow-railroaders called him, what time he was
to report the next day.
My grandfather - Pop - usually left for work at five or six in the morning.
Grandma, of course, had been up well before that, fixing his breakfast and completing
the food basket he would take with him. It was a big basket, for he would need food
for several meals over the next two or three days of his run. Grandma usually packed
plenty of cooked ham and homemade bread as well as raw potatoes for Pop to fry -
the “caboose potatoes" he was famous for among his fellow railroaders.
Next came Pop and Grandma’s goodbye ritual, which I sometimes witnessed
when Pop’s “call" was for later in the day. Standing near the front door, Pop would
give his wife a tight hug, kiss her, then another hug. It seemed almost perfunctory -
one-two-three; no words were exchanged - at least that I could hear. But I knew that
embrace was a rule that could not be broken, even when they had fussed two minutes
before. Railroading was dangerous; this morning’s goodbye kiss could be the last.
But he was blessed: During his whole career, he sustained only two relatively minor
injuries - the right hand wounded when he was making a link and pin coupling, and
two ribs broken when he was thrown against a pile of lumber.
Then off Pop would go, his basket flung over his arm for the four-mile walk,
in good or bad weather, to the railroad staging place (or whatever they called it) at
Knob Mount across the Potomac in West Virginia.
After he was promoted to passenger train conductor, Theodore wore the
customary dark blue uniform and his hours became more regular. Back home from
a run, he would spread out the collected tickets on the dining room table to sort and
tally them. The new job seemed a little more befitting a 62-year-old man. He was
proud of his new status. It was a shame that it came so late in his career - only three
years before his retirement.13
Pop could find pleasure in simple activities: playing cards (usually Setback)
with family and friends at home or at Aunt Maggie’s (Grandma’s sister); going,
rarely, to a movie (“Boys Town" with Spencer Tracy, for one); the occasional summer
outing on the Potomac; the annual two-week horse racing season at the Cumberland
fairgrounds; watching the local baseball games and following the big league play.
If Pop had a hobby, it was fishing and he did so at every opportunity. He
probably started going out with his boys, John, Bud or Pete, when they were still at
51
13 Cumberland Evening Times article, Veteran Western Maryland Railroad Conductor Retires, October 1, 1938.
