Train Station

“That old train station had significant meaning to me,” said Karen as she nostalgically stared over my shoulder toward the back of the coffee shop. A slight smile crossed her face as her mind seemingly wandered to a lifetime over a hundred years ago. She was reminiscing about the long-since destroyed rail station in downtown Pewaukee, Wisconsin, her gaze fixed on where it once stood—the depot, she would share, led to her very existence.

“My grandfather learned that my grandmother was going to be on that train returning to Milwaukee.” She paused, the seconds seemingly slowing as she continued her thought. “He raced to the station to stop her,” her cadence accelerating as if keeping pace with his steps. In a bold declaration, he told his future wife that “he wasn’t going to let her go and date that other guy from the city.”

I pictured a scene from a black-and-white movie perhaps starring Cary Grant running alongside the train car and Audrey Hepburn peering through an open window. Karen’s telling was certainly cinematic.

This statement of love would evolve into a sixty-seven-year marriage, the birth of multiple children, including a son who turned out to be Karen’s father. In an ironic turn of events, the “other guy from the city” turned out to become her mother’s father—her maternal grandfather. It took me a moment to wrap my mind around that twist of fate.

This was just one of the many stories that Karen shared on this June day as we sat in a space that was once a grocery store during her youth. Besides the four years she went to college, a mere sixty-five miles from our location, she had spent her entire life living along the shores of Pewaukee Lake. At sixty-eight, she was reminiscing about her roots.

“What if,” I wondered. “What if her grandfather arrived five minutes later?” Perhaps a community would have looked very different.

Now retired, and admittedly busy as ever volunteering at numerous organizations, Karen credits her civic engagement to her parents. “They were good role models. They taught us to give back and to be involved. That is what I have tried to do.” There was a sense of pride as she reflected on her hometown and the impact of her career.

Karen’s upbringing, her connection to community, and a sense of purpose led her to a career leading the county’s food bank for many years. She shared that food insecurity was often an overlooked challenge in the rather affluent community. It was a challenge nonetheless and something she committed her life’s work toward addressing.

The old grocery store has been converted into a coffee shop, the movie theater a pizzeria, and that train station is now just a memory. For Karen, these aren’t just buildings. They represent stories about a community that has been home to her family for generations.

For many professionals who have lived in multiple locations, allowing career and the corporate ladder determine the direction of the compass, memories like Karen’s seem elusive. Her story is a reminder to dig deeper, to understand not only where we live, but what came before us. Perhaps that is what roots really are. Every community has someone like Karen. We pass them in coffee shops, grocery stores, churches, and parks. They carry decades of stories we will never know if we don’t ask.

As Karen looked over my shoulder toward where the old train station once stood, history, in a way, came alive.

I am glad I listened.