Timing is Everything!

My paternal grandfather, Warren Davis Wood, was a railroad man.  He was an engineer on the Santa Fe Coast Lines Railroad.  I had been trying to research RR information on him for a few years with no luck.  All I knew was that Warren was enumerated in the 1910 census as living in Thayer, Missouri as a married 28 year old with the occupation of a Locomotive Fireman¹ and I also had this picture.

 Warren D. Wood (center)

My breakthrough came when a cousin of mine mentioned that she had a box of memorabilia and asked if I would be interested in it.  She was able to share with me some of the records I had been searching for for so long.  What timing!  As genealogists, we know that sometimes treasures can be found if you wait long enough.

This Locomotive Firemen traveling card is dated Dec. 31, 1904 and references a Lodge and the Frisco System.  It states that he was employed as a fireman for 2 years and three months and was a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen's union for 1 year and 7 months.

I also found that on June 11,1920 he became certified as a Locomotive Engineer on the Santa Fe Coast Lines.

  

But the cards that I treasure most are the Engineer watch certifications from 1935 and 1936.   The pink card is a record of the watch cleaning, explaining that watches must be cleaned within 15 months of exact date last cleaned.  The blue card details testing the watch for accuracy every 15 days noting in seconds if it ran fast or slow.

Yes, Timing is Everything!
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¹ "United States Census, 1910"  Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. W.D. Wood household,Year: 1910; Census Place: Thayer, Oregon, Missouri; Roll: T624_804; Page: 16A; Enumeration District: 130; Image: 329