Growing up, I remember my dad telling the tale of how his aunt lost her arm in a nighttime train wreck. It was such a wild story, but without a lot of details, so my imagination filled them in. We still had her prosthetic arm in the attic or the garage--which was always kind of creepy. I inherited that arm and still have it stored in my garage... it seems like it could be useful as either a valuable historical artifact or a creepy Halloween prop. So far I've resisted putting it out on Halloween. My daughter says I should make it look like it is coming out of the ground.
Well, the scales just tipped toward the historical, when I found an old newspaper clipping:
When I saw this, I knew that despite the misspelled name, it was about "Mrs. Meek," my dad's aunt. I was so excited to learn the July 13, 1913 date of the "Vineyard train wreck" and the rest of the story. My entire life, I had always wondered about it--where, when, why, how--and I could finally learn what happened. And interestingly, to those involved, I'm sure it reinforced the concept of the number 13 being unlucky.
