The Circus Train

My Grandfather And His Dray Wagon circa 1895 to Early 1900s

   
     Trains were the lifeblood of towns situated along the railroad tracks during the early 1900s.  By the time Daddy was a teenager, the rail lines extended throughout much of the Midwest, often positioned close to major roads that connected towns large and small.
     Benville, a small village of only a few hundred town residents (the same population as today) was the source of supplies and social activities for a wide radius of farms and farm families surrounding it.  The steam trains,

Home on The Farm

A Sad Day - Leaving The Farm for Last Time in 1965

          The wind blows unhindered across the small plot of land where I spent my childhood. Unlike Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I can never go home. The farm buildings, fences, and trees have been gone for many years now, the soil returned to cropland by some other family or agribusiness. The only Norrises remaining from our branch of the family rest peacefully in the town cemetery. 
     Many years ago, I began to document my memories so that my children and grandchildren would have a glimpse of an era long gone, a way of life remembered by only a few of us lucky enough to have experienced life in rural America during the mid-Twentieth Century.