Joe Thomason in North Door of Singer Louisiana KCS Depot 1954

Arriving to take over the depot during my week off.

In 1955 we were meeting up to take International Morse lessons in Beaumont thinking we would go out on ships around the world. I remember driving to the lessons in zombie-like fatigue. Joe began coughing up blood in the depot at DeQuincy (they have a Railroad Museum there now!) and I made him go to a doctor. We both were warehoused at the Pines, out toward Texas from Shreveport. After a couple of months I let my mother know where I was and she demanded that I come to her for better treatment. In fact, the doctors there had heard of streptomycin. In Louisiana they performed a savage surgery on Joe. He died in the early spring of 1960. He was the nearest to a grown up Huckleberry Finn I ever met, one of the kindest men I ever knew. I had forgotten I had this picture. Looking at it now I see that as a photograph it's good, and see now that Joe was a very handsome guy.

This was the door to the White waiting room. The door to the Colored waiting room was kept locked and the ticket window blocked with shelves. Singer was so small that it would have been unfriendly and downright grotesque to separate people who were together all the time.