This is the story of one man's love and compassion for trains. James Johnson Pierce was born on July 19, 1911, in Lima, Ohio. Growing up in such a large train-oriented town, of course he couldn't help but fall in love with trains.

Growing up in a large family, everyone pitched in and helped. His older brothers would climb aboard the slow moving coal drags rolling past their home. They would then throw large chunks of coal off, and Jim and the rest of the kids would load the coal into wagons to help heat the family home during the winters.

He recalled that his father owned several homes in Lima, and would rent them out to different folks. His father once turned down a gentleman who wished to rent a home for his family which was just moving into the area. Jim's father turned the man down flatly. Later, while reading a local paper, he saw an article about the new president of the Lima Locomotive Works, and to his father's horror, discovered it was this gentleman who just days before he refused to rent a house to!

Jim grew up in Lima, but eventually moved to Toledo, where he married his first wife, Maria. Jim and Maria lived next door to my grandparents. The homes had large basement windows. My father at age five, would watch for Jim to come home from work, and go to his basement to run his large American Flyer train layout. My father would watch through the windows for hours. One day, Jim saw my father watching, and invited him over to help run trains. My father went and got my grandfather, and they both went over to run trains. That Christmas, my father received his very first American Flyer set (which he still has to this day).

My grandparents became very close friends with Jim and Maria, but my grandfather being a truck driver had to go where the work was. So, my father and grandfather moved to Detroit in the mid-fifties. And, the years passed.

On December 6, 1960, my grandfather, Winford Dale Wiles, passed away and was buried in Tennessee. Jim and Maria were both there for my grandmother and Dad. Again, the years marched on. My parents married in 1963, and I was born in May 1966. In August of 1966, Maria passed away of cancer. On her death bed, she asked my grandmother to never let Jim be alone. Jim and Maria never had any children, and he never liked to be alone.

With Jim working and living in Toledo, and my grandmother working and living in Detroit, they lost track of each other. My grandmother eventually sold her home here in Detroit, and moved to Toledo and shared an apartment with one of her friends. They both got jobs working as cleaning ladies at a local elementary school. One day, as my grandmother was walking up the stairs to her second floor apartment, coming down the stairs from the third floor was Jim. It turns out that he had the apartment directly over my grandmother's.

Several months passed, and Jim and my grandmother married (I was the ring bearer). April of 1969, the man who had originally sparked the love of trains in the heart of my father - became his step father - and the only grandfather I ever knew.

Jim and Elver (my grandmother) bought a house around the corner from their apartment, and still live there today. Jim worked and retired out of the General Motors Hydromatic Plant on Aexis Rd.

I spent many weeks of my summer vacations down there. My favorite thing to do with my grandfather was to go over and watch the trains roll past Alexis Tower.

This last March 21st, 1998, the phone rang at the house about 8 am. - my mom was in Toledo and was starting the long task of letting the family know that my grandpa Jim had passed away about 1 am at home after several weeks of sickness. The official cause of death was determined to be natural causes.

At his funeral, there was no preacher, only close family members. My father, Fred Dale, Sr. spoke of memories of Jim, and growing up next door to him and Maria, and how Jim had caught him that day all those years ago watching him run trains.
As I walked over and stood by the casket to say my final goodbyes, my daughter, Melissa, took my hand and said that she now knew why my father and I love trains so very much.

As I sit here today and write these words of memories and love for my grandfather, I hope and pray to be able to pass that same love of trains on to my child and eventually on to my grandchildren. Hopefully, YOU too, can pass your love of trains on to some of your family members.

Also, you might want to share those memories and stories with some of the younger members of our Museum. Some of us remember when our equipment was actually still in use!
FDW,Jr.

Yes, the pun is intended, as the word has a two-fold meaning in this statement. The Lions Club has operated the Leader Dogs For The Blind School in Rochester, Michigan, for a number of years. But, most people do not know what is involved in training a dog to be the "eyes" for a blind person. We were told that it take about a year to get a dog used to all the things that it will encounter, before it is even introduced to its blind "owner". Of course, much more training is involved, getting the two used to each other, then training them to work together, and finally - letting them go on their own. The reason for this outing was both to get the dogs used to being in a crowd of people, and to get the dogs used to different modes of transportation. The left-most people here are conductors Brian Geib, and John Siemieniak. Next are the four candidates for the school, which do not appear to be too worried about the big Alco S-1 locomotive 1807 throbbing in the background! This was truly an interesting experience, and we look forward to seeing the trainers back again in the future. Maybe someday we will actually be visited by the working dog and its final owner, taking a trip with us!

Photo by Vernon C. Gomez