Inez Sparkman

A Mother-Daughter Trip They Would Never Forget
Less than two hours before Norfolk & Western passenger train Number Two plummeted into the washout at Thaxton, Inez and her mother, Roberta Powell, had boarded the doomed train at nearby Salem, Virginia. They were accompanied by Inez’s friend, Janie Caven, and their destination was Fredericksburg, roughly 200 miles away.¹

According to Norfolk and Western’s official report of the wreck, which listed Inez incorrectly as Inez Sparkam, she, Janie, and her mother were aboard “Beverly”, the second of the three sleeper cars on the train. All three would survive the crash, but Inez seemed to take the worst of it with injuries listed as “concussion of spine; retention of urine; and disturbance of menstrual and digestive functions.”²

At the time of the wreck, she was only eighteen years old and resided in Marshall, Texas with her mother.³ ⁴ ⁵ She would eventually recover from her injuries and around eight years after the Thaxton disaster, she would marry Dr. Hugh R. Carwile, a physician originally from South Carolina who had moved to Marshall. She gave birth to a son, Hugh G. Carwile, in 1898.⁶

Her son would not get to see his mother grow old, as she died just six years after he was born and just a few days shy of her thirty-third birthday.⁷

Do you have more information about Inez Sparkman? If you think she might have been an ancestor of yours, or if you have some additional information that you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks!

Sources

“A Model Woman.”, The Salem Times Register (Salem, VA), July 5, 1889, Volume 23, Number 51: p. 3.
Fourteenth Annual Report of The Railroad Commissioner of the State of Virginia, J.H. O’Bannon Superintendent of Public Printing, Richmond, VA, 1890: p. xlv. http://books.google.com/books?id=CFopAAAAYAAJ
1880 Census record for Inez Sparkman, Year: 1880; Census Place: Precinct 2, Wood, Texas; Roll: 1333; Family History Film: 1255333; Page: 287B; Enumeration District: 125.
Find A Grave, “Inez Carwile (1871 – 1904) – Find A Grave Memorial”, FindAGrave.com, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=16667675 (accessed June 6, 2012).
“The Thaxton Disaster. First reports of the Accident Were About Right.”, The Washington Critic (Washington, D.C.), July 3, 1889, Number 6524: pg. 1, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82000189/1889-07-03/ed-1/seq-1/
Census record for Inez Carwile, Year: 1900; Census Place: Marshall Ward 3, Harrison, Texas; Roll: 1643; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 47; FHL microfilm: 1241643.
“Mortuary.”, The Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX), March 22, 1904, Volume IV, Number 280: p.2.

I was greatly surprised to hear that an accident had occurred at this culvert, as I regarded it as one of the safest on the line.

The wrecked cars burned with a fierceness that could not have been equaled if every stick of timber had been soaked in oil.

In the morning we found that there were four or five houses around the wreck. We screamed and the men yelled, but nobody seemed to have come to our relief. With all the noise I don’t see why those people could sleep, anyhow

I will not leave, ladies, until I see you all safe; I am a Virginian.

The shrieks and groans of the imprisoned victims could be distinctly heard from the bank.

I have stood on the battlefield, and heard shot and shell rattling around me, and seen my comrades falling like leaves in autumn, but I have never seen anything that curdled my blood with horror or moved me to deeper depths of compassion than the scenes of that dreadful night.

There never was such a rain fell on me to my recollection. Yes, sir, it was a scary time.

Little pieces of bodies could be seen, and were gathered in, and in some cases ashes, though most of the burned bodies in the shape of ashes had been washed away.

We have no knowledge of Mr. H. B. Wheeler whatsoever. If he was on the train that was wrecked he has not been accounted for, and I presume has been lost. His body has not been recovered, but may have been burned in the wreck.

It rained so it looked like it would take my breath away.

When I visited the scene you could not find wood enough to make a door, so complete had been the wash away and consumption by fire.

We may not know where their ashes slumber, but God himself will keep a faithful watch over their sacred dust.

The air was very still when I came out and the rain was coming down very steadily, but from the direction of the mountain, I heard very distinctly a very loud noise, a heavy rumbling in the clouds, that sounded something like an earthquake.

I just stayed there and did not know what to do, but just think on the Lord and asked him to spare me.

It was different from any rain I ever saw in its violence, and duration.

I never passed through a more terrible experience in my life, and I assure you I have no desire to participate in such another.

It was the most horrible thing I ever witnessed.

The first I recollect when I came to my senses I was halloing for help.

Oh, to see the wounded—all is a picture before me continually, and I never will again travel in the night.

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