A Love Story

This story was told to me through the years, and I felt it was beautiful enough to share. It was somewhere around 1939 when the story begins.
Irene was a soft spoken, beautiful young woman. She was working in a restaurant that her father owned. She and her whole family had grown up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but she was the only child left at home, and became the caregiver for her dear Mother until she passed away.
After that, she and her father moved to a small town in Tennessee and opened the restaurant, where she was the cook and waitress. She was the ultimate country cook, making biscuits from scratch daily, gravy, ham, eggs and all the vegetables and desserts that are so prevalent still in country restaurants in the South.
Her father was the business manager. His career as a younger man had been a school teacher in a one-room school, where he taught all the children in the area, as well as his own children at many times in their lives. He was a man well respected and honored as a fine upstanding dignified southern gentleman. I always love looking at some of his handwriting. It was the most beautiful handwriting I have ever seen, real calligraphy, but it was an everyday writing to him. That is the way they taught them in those days. Great handwriting was essential. My Grandfather died when I was a baby, so I actually never knew him, but I heard all about him from my Mother as I grew up.Ah, but I digress from my original subject.
Irene worked hard and diligently in the restaurant. In those days there were no fine cookstoves and work-saving appliances that we have today. From time to time, she would get on the train to Nashville, and visit one of her brothers and his family. It was a way to get away from the drudgery of the kitchen work and give her a little time to rest.
Across the road from the restaurant were the train tracks where trains travelled several times a day. It was a most popular mode of travel for many, especially those who could not afford automobiles, or could not drive.
Irene took the train as often as she could. The trip from the small Tennessee town where she lived to Nashville is not a long way to travel, but it was her only transportation and she loved riding the train. She always said there was just something about the sound of the train, and the scenery flying by that was so relaxing to her.
The conductor on the train began to notice this lovely woman riding his train often. Soon they began to have conversations and a friendship evolved. They would watch for each other every weekend as she would board the train for the short trip.
She soon found out that he was married and that his wife was totally disabled in mind and body. Their friendship and conversations were their only outlet for the emotions that both began to feel for each other. Many times when she could not make the train trip, he would throw out a note as the train passed and she would run out and get it.
Finally, her father passed away and the restaurant had to be sold. Irene moved away and lived with her brother and his family. Then they began to write letters to each other. As far as I ever knew that was the extent of their love story, as both of them had too much integrity to pursue the relationship.She was my best friend. I remember her coming to my house when my children were small and my youngest child and I both were in bed with a severe case of the mumps. She took care of us all while we were sick. She was such a quiet spirit, never complaining about her life or the lack of love. I never understood in those days when she heard a train whistle blow, she would always say, "oh, how I love that low mournful sound".
There is no doubt in my mind that as beautiful as she was, there was someone out there that would have loved and cherished her as she deserved, but she had no interest in looking.
I noticed a change in her the last two years of her life. I found out later that her friend had passed away. She left us with a sudden heart attack two years later at the age of 64.Where I now live, I am about 2 miles from a train track, and if I listen closely about 7 AM every day, I hear that low mournful sound of the train whistle, and I have learned to love it. I think of my dear Irene every time I hear it.