By Rita Shirley LeBleu
Yes, the DeQuincy Railroad Museum has an interesting collection of architecture and artifacts that draw visitors, but it’s the tour guides who make a visit to the Railroad Museum a fun, fact-filled and memorable experience. Mary Jane Barbery and Katy Haley are ready to share a story with each visitor who pops in. Kenny Hester fills in when needed.
Mary Jane Barbery
Mary Jane Barbery took her first train ride as a newborn, and has been associated with the railroad in some way ever since.
Her parents, Clarence and Hallie Kirwin Chandler, and others, moved from “The Valley” when Missouri Pacific announced to its Corpus Christi crew that regular jobs awaited them in DeQuincy.
“It was hard to get people to move here,” Barbery said. “Everybody thought it was a swamp.”
Barbery said as appealing as it was for her father, an engineer, to have a regular job and seniority – not just a slot on the Extra Board – it was difficult for him and her mother to leave family behind. They returned as often as possible.
“One time when I was probably in the fifth grade, a big bridge in The Valley washed out and the railroad called my daddy to work on the bridge crew because he could drive a pile driver,” Barbery said. “Mamma liked it because he was paid his regular pay, plus paid to run the pile driver, but I think she liked it even more that she got to be with family.”
To read the rest of this story, please see page eight of the print edition of The DeQuincy News.
