The Santa Fe Chief

One of my fondest childhood memories is my ride on the Santa Fe Chief.

When I was 14 we took a trip to Texas to visit my mother’s Parents, John Hill and Mattie Dowker Hill. While we were in Amarillo I took a train to visit my sister in Waynoka Oklahoma. But before I can tell the story of the train ride I have to give you considerable background information.

My grandparents lived in Amarillo, Texas. My grandfather was an engineer for the Santa Fe railroad. He drove the Santa Fe Chief. The Chief ran from Sacramento, California to Chicago, Illinois. My grandfather and his crew did the section between Amarillo and Waynoka. They would lay over one night in Waynoka and drive another Chief back to Amarillo the next day. They did this two or three times per week.

Waynoka had a population of about 2,000. There was a hotel, used mainly by the railroad crew to lay over between runs. When my grandfather first got the Amarillo-Waynoka run he and my grandmother moved from their home in Muskogee, Oklahoma to Waynoka. They actually lived in that hotel.

I remember visiting them there. I was very young, maybe six or seven. It was a two story frame building. I remember they lived on the second floor. It seems there was more than one room. But the main thing I remember was the bat. A bat was flying around in the room and someone was chasing it with a broom.

At some point they moved to Amarillo. But, their time in Waynoka resulted in Lucille living there. I don’t know how that came to be, but she did live there.

Lucille is the adopted daughter of Aunt Bertha, Mattie’s sister. When Mandy was born my mother gave up the baby to Lucille. Mandy lived with Lucille until the visit to Waynoka with the bat. She was about seven or eight years old then. After that she lived with us in Muskogee. At first I thought she was my cousin. But eventually we were told that Mandy is my sister.

When I was in the sixth or seventh grade, when we were living in Daisy,Tennessee, Mandy went back to Waynoka to live with Lucille again. So I guess Mandy and I lived in the same household as brother and sister for about three or four years. When she left to go back to live with Lucille I missed her a lot. It was really a shock. One day she just wasn’t there anymore. There was never an explanation.

Now, back to the story of when I was 14 and took the trip to Amarillo. My mother got me a free family pass on the Santa Fe Chief to go from Amarillo to Waynoka to spend a week with Mandy and Lucille. I was really excited about seeing Mandy again and spending some time with her.

On the train I didn’t have a real ticket but I was allowed to sit anywhere there was a seat. I made the whole trip in the observation car on the top level.

When I found out I was going to Texas I bought a cowboy hat. It was too big to fit in my suitcase so I carried it on my lap on the train. The conductor checked on me a couple of times but mostly I felt like I was on my own. He took notice of my cowboy hat. He also made sure I got off at the right place.

I got off in Waynoka and Mandy and Lucille met me. Mandy was really excited to see me. We were almost jumping up and down with anticipation of the fun we were going to have.

One day we went horseback riding. Mandy had a friend who owned several horses and she borrowed two with saddles and everything. We were already experienced with horses because we had one when we lived in Daisy, Tennessee. We rode several hours out on the prairie around Waynoka. These were quarter horses with western saddles. Of course I was wearing my cowboy hat. I couldn’t resist letting my horse run. Mandy let her’s go too. I was in front and my hat blew off. It landed right in front of Mandy’s horse and the horse bucked once and jumped the hat. Mandy did not fall off. We went back to get my hat, laughing and telling each our perspective on what had just happened.

Waynoka has sand burrs. They are everywhere. You don’t go barefoot in western Oklahoma. In Tennessee I grew up going barefoot in the summer. By two weeks after school was out my feet were so tough I could run barefoot on a gravel road. Mandy and I went to the swimming pool. Of course everyone was barefoot at the pool. But everyone else knew to not step on the grass. I ran around the pool and took a little short cut across a patch of grass and immediately had several sand burrs sticking in my feet.

Mandy laughed and said: “Oh no, you can’t walk on the grass.”

Mandy introduced me to 45 rpm records. 45’s were the latest thing. She had a little portable player and a stack of records. It would play 78 rpm and 45 rpm. 78’s and 45’s both only had one song on a side, but the 45’s were so much smaller and more convenient. Also, they would bend without breaking. She and her friends would get together and play their records. When I got back home I bought a portable player and started collecting records.

We went out to the sand dunes. There is a place near Waynoka that looks like a little Sahara Desert. It has real high dunes that move. Over a year they may move hundreds of feet, moved by the wind, one grain of sand at a time. It was great fun climbing on them and sliding down.

Then my parents came and got me and I went back home to Red Bank, Tennessee.