Edith McCullough Perry:
My Story

Kathleen Davenport was a playmate in Alicia. She lived above town at what was called Davenport Crossing where the country road crossed the railroad. There was a cemetery there, too. One time I had Sunday dinner with them. Kathleen and I walked up the tracks after Sunday School. The trains were so infrequent and so regular, and their schedules so well-known that it was safe to walk the tracks. A favorite place for lovers to stroll on Sunday afternoons, also was the tracks. Kathleen's brother, Lurico, became the night operator at the depot and they moved down to Alicia to live. That's when we played with Kathleen at our house because Lurico slept during the day. Her brother, Frank, in later years was owner of Uncle Will's corner, house and store. Kathleen has been many years in Honolulu and we've always exchanged letters at Christmas time. She never married.

Ordra Orr -- almost kin to Uncle Will -- was another school-mate of those days and one spring I went up to see her, where she was cooking for her brothers who were making a crop.

The W.P. Tuckers and their daughter, Vinnie, came to Alicia to be day operator at the depot. They didn't stay long, living at the hotel, but when they moved to Neelyville, Missouri, I visited them. Lynn was a railroad man and knew many others. So I went up on the local with a brakeman he knew, in the passenger coach. I wore my white pique dress and carried the Edith doll. Some miles before we got to Neelyville, a derailed car on a train ahead of us stopped us. We could not pass; so the brakeman took me off and up to the engine of the stalled train, and I went on to Neelyville riding in the engine and I arrived in a very soiled condition. But it was a good visit and I was glad I had had piano lessons for I covered myself with glory by playing my pieces well. Mrs. Tucker crocheted a while wool hood for Edith, which I still have.