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From Then on I Was a Loner Gene Wadsworth, Sequim, Washington |
| When Gene Wadsworth caught his first freight at age 17 on a winter's night in 1932, he'd never ridden on a train before. Orphaned at age 11, Gene was living at Burley, Idaho, with an uncle who had five children of his own. "Why do you hang around here, when you're not wanted?" one of his cousins asked him. That night, Gene stuffed his few belongings into a flour sack and hit the road.
"I was about as low as a kid could get, as I walked over the Snake River Bridge. I was thinking of suicide, looking down into that black water, but I kept walking. A freight train was just pulling out of a little town. I stopped to let it pass.
"I'll never know why I reached out and grabbed the rung of the boxcar ladder. I climbed to the catwalk. I lay on my stomach and hung on for dear life, as we rumbled off into the night. I was scared stiff." Taking the advice of older hoboes, Gene headed south to warmer climes and transient camps established by the government, where he could get work at $1 a week, plus food and shelter. Moving between camps in California and Arizona, he made friends with a young man in the same position. "Jim was also blond, my age and size - six feet and 165 pounds. Everyone believed we were brothers. We thought a lot alike and hit it off very good. We teamed up and decided to make our fortune together. "All went well with us, until one night when Jim and I were riding on the ladders between two boxcars. "It was so cold my hands nearly froze. I slipped my arm over a rung of the ladder and put my hand in my jacket pocket. Being back to back, I couldn't see Jim. "All of a sudden the train gave a jerk, as it took up slack in the draw bars. "I heard Jim let out a muffled moan, as he fell. I whirled round and made a grab for him. He had on a knit cap. I got the cap and a handful of blond hair. Jim was gone. Disappeared under the wheels. "No way could Jim survive. I got so sick I'd to climb up and lie on the catwalk. "From then on, I was a loner. I never teamed up with anyone, but always traveled alone." |
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