The Train Wreck Family Stories

When I was young, my sisters and I would spend afternoons at the home of my maternal grandma Elaine - affectionately known to us as “Maga” - while we waited for our Mom to pick us up after school. Sometimes, Maga would tell us a story that had caught my attention early on: the story of her own grandma, my great-great-grandma Charlotta, and her involvement in a train wreck as a teenager. The details as Maga told them were straightforward: a Swedish family, with a mom and dad and a few kids, including Charlotta, was involved in a railroad accident as they were making their way to Minnesota. Charlotta’s mother and sister were killed in the wreck, and another sister was gravely injured, preventing the surviving family members from continuing on to Minnesota for many months until the wounded sister had recovered enough to travel.