CLIMBING OUR FAMILY TREE
This is the engine dedicated to my husband, Francis J. Wiener, by the Wisconsin Central Railroad. It was the only engine dedicated to a rail fan. Railroading was his life. He worked for the Soo Line Railroad for thirty five years, he enjoyed trains and could always be found trackside photographing trains. On the first day of the existence of the Wisconsin Central, Fran was over at the yards bright and early to photograph the changeover. The problem was how not to get asked to stay off the property. We both had unlimited rights to be on the Soo Line property. This could be different.
How did the officials know who were the new employees? Ah! Every employee was wearing a cap with the Wisconsin Central on it. Where to get one? An auto parked conveniently near had one in the back seat. Oh well, the owner wouldn't miss it. Fran kept it with the blessing of the staff of the Wisconsin Central and was their unofficial photographer with permission to be anyplace on the line-------and he was.
Francis John Wiener and Dorothy Frances Thornton met on a summer day in 1939. She was fifteen and he was sixteen and a half. Dorothy’s grandfather, Charles Henry Thornton had promised Dorothy and her brother, Bob, a trip on his yacht with a few friends, as a birthday present. All Bob could talk about was his friend Fran and he was going to invite him. My reply was, “Oh no! I haven’t met him”. There was a lot of squabbling about that, but I remained adamant.
One day I had just washed my hair and was sitting on the front steps drying it when a boy on a bicycle drove up, stopped and said, “Well, can I go?” My reply, “I guess so.” Five years later we were married and joined to form our family tree (though I wasn’t the least bit interested in genealogy at that point.)
Descendants of Francis J. Wiener
The results of one trip shooting trains