Porch Swings, Fireflies, and Jelly Jars: Denver & Rio Grande Western Train Engine, Iley Selph Sr.

Thursday, June 13, 2019

Denver & Rio Grande Western Train Engine, Iley Selph Sr.

© Kathy Duncan, 2019

This a photograph that a good friend of mine took during her trip to Chama and posted on her facebook page.

It is an engine from the Denver & Rio Grande railroad for which my husband's grandfather Iley Nunn Selph Sr. worked in the early 1900s. He was a station agent for them between roughly 1912 and 1920, left them for a few months in 1920 and returned to work for them, possibly in La Madera village in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. This railroad ran between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Denver, Colorado. Later the railroad was reorganized and named the Denver & Rio Grande Western, which would have required the engines to be repainted.

Steam Engine, Denver & Rio Grande Western

(Thank you, Dana.)

This morning's Google search also pulled up this article, published TODAY in the Taos News, about the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad as it passed through La Madera!!! This new tidbit of information: the Denver & Rio Grande built a spur to La Madera in 1914 to service a temporary logging boom. That narrows down the time period when Iley Selph and family lived there.

You can read the Taos News article here.

Today, La Madera, New Mexico is barely a crossroads.

La Madera, New Mexico

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About Me:

My favorite memories from childhood include visits to my grandparents in East Texas. At dusk we'd run around my grandparent's yard, catching fireflies and putting them in jelly jars. When darkness descended, we'd return to the porch. It was a special treat to sit in the porch swing. Inevitably, the adults would launch into family stories of Pink Kelley's brush with Sherman's troops, of Great Uncle Hood Brown's tragic death, and of the Kelley family's wagon trip to Texas, among many others. The stars on those nights were magical.

I began my genealogy research in the summer of 1975, less than a month after my high school graduation. When I married in 1983, I started researching my husband's family as well. I was fortunate to start this hobby as a youngster because it gave me an opportunity to correspond with researchers who are long gone; to ask questions of family members -although not enough, never enough; and travel a bit. The result is a lot of information. I've come to the realization that I will probably never be able to afford to publish, so this is my publication.

This blog contains a mixture of information on my husband's family and mine. I've expanded into a second blog called Flimsies and Frippery with the intention of focusing on quilts and dolls, but I have several historical research entries there with more planned, which is why I don't get more quilting done.

Ultimately, genealogy is my passion. This is where I plan to record family stories, research adventures and misadventures, and those serendipitous moments that happen out of the blue. You should be warned that I have a bad habit of going back and adding information and links to individual entries, so it is beneficial to check back often if there is a family of particular interest to you. If you wander in and discover that you are a cousin, please contact me.

Since many younger family members who are new to genealogy are starting to contact me about their ancestors, I've started adding family trees to help them see how everyone is connected. The trees are divided between my family and my husband's. You will find them below under the label's Family Trees - My Husband's Side and Family Trees - My Family's Side.

For better or worse, this blog reflects the research, thinking, and writing of a human.