The Dummy

For Christmas this year I gave my siblings this ornament offered by the Butts County Historical Society.

There are four others in the set:  the Indian Spring Hotel/Museum, the Butts County Courthouse, the Flovilla Schoolhouse, and the Elder Hotel.

I chose the train because our great-great grandfather (Wm Ferguson Smith) started (with a couple of others) the railroad company.  And our great grandfather (Thomas Osborn Linch), his son-in-law, was one of the train's engineers.

Here's a link to a little history about the Railroad Company.  Please note that the engineer is misnamed.  A. O. Linch never was the engineer.  It was his father, Thomas Osborn Linch, who held that position.

The outbuildings (shed) which housed the engine(s) in the off season are featured in one of the stories recounted in My Flovilla.  Read the next-to-last chapter - The Best to Last.

This gift seemed fitting since I'd spent so much time this Fall working on the Second Edition with our mother.  Plus it tied in with all the children and grandchildren actually receiving their personal copy of My Flovilla.

Reading up on family made me wonder about their Christmas traditions and gift-giving.  Young Mary Talitha died at age 35, in 1887, a mere 17 years after President Grant declared December 25th a legal holiday.

Her daughter, Harriet Ann (Hattie), my maternal great grandmother and wife of the Dummy Train engineer, died on Christmas Day, 1940.

And now you know.... the rest of the story.