The Winchester News.
January 13, 1956, 63 years ago.
The Branham Café in Union City will be the scene of a large informal supper tonight when local Pennsylvania and New York Central railroad employees get together to honor two retiring veterans, E. L. Clevenger of 708 North Columbia street and George Maloy of 227 North street, Union City.
E. L. Clevenger, who was born six miles west of Union City on November 6, 1886, moved to Winchester with his parents when he was a young man. In 1910 he became fascinated with telegraphy and became a student under Harold Mann, who was then the second trick operator, employed by the old Grand Rapids & Indiana (G.R. & I) railroad in Winchester. However, Mann was soon to move from Winchester, going to one of the Michigan resort towns located along the railroad and then George Robinson, G. R. & I. agent in Winchester, took the youthful Clevenger under his wing and completed the prepping.
Late in the year of 1910, Clevenger was hired by the G. R. & I. as a finished telegrapher and assigned at Lynn as a clerk to the agent. Later, he became the first trick operator and after working this job one month, was ordered to Portland as the third trick telegrapher.
While at Portland he became involved in a catastrophe that, although blameless, left its mark on his mind. He sent a southbound work train out of Portland one morning with proper train orders to run on a clear track and it became involved in a head-on smashup with a north bound fast freight on the single track between Portland and Winchester when a flagman failed to provide a necessary warning and three of the train crew were killed. Says Loren, "I rode out on the hospital train and although cleared of all blame in the accident, the scene of the dead and injured and the wrecked trains took its toll and I promptly gave up railroading on the G. R. & I. much to the consternation of my superiors." It was then that the New York Central (Big Four) railroad prevailed on him to engage his talents on that road.
After working for the Big Four I relegated to the year of 1912, he married the former Pearl Hart who lived seven miles south of Union City in the Bartonia area and again gave up railroading for the pursuit of farming. During the next seven years Clevenger operated what is now known as the Herschel Gray farm, moving to the homestead of his parents in 1914 to complete the tenure.
In 1919, George McNeal who was a section foreman in Union City, convinced him that he should return to railroading and Bud Connelly, who yet called Union City his home, hired him in his (Connelly's) role as chief train dispatcher.
For the next six years he worked up and down the Big Four railroad through Union City as an extra telegrapher and when work became slack following the WW I period, he asked for and received a leave of absence from railroad service in order to obtain employment at the Union City Body Company, but always it was the lure of railroading which beckoned.
In 1925 he transferred his railroad seniority to the Cleveland division and after performing service at Crestline and "UD" telegraph office in Cleveland, was assigned the agency at Vernon, Ohio. In 1940 he returned to Union City as an operator in the local office where he remained ever since, thus ending his long and brilliant career virtually where it began.
George Maloy, ending 50 years of continuous service with the New York Central, all served in Union City, was born in Jay County on October 2, 1890. In 1896 the family moved to Union City into the old "Granny" Sullivan property that was located on the site of the present Wolf Pontiac garage. The following fall, at the age of 7, George began his education in the East Side school which stood where the present school building is.
On June 5, 1905, he began his railroad career when "Irish" Pat Howard, section foreman, hired him onto his gang. After working for Howard into the fall of 1911, Maloy quit the section to go to work for his uncle, Aron Eley, who was foreman at the old railroad coal dock which stood just west of Howard street, directly south of the Pennsylvania depot but on March 19, 1912, he returned to the section gang as a hand and worked in that capacity until 1916 when he was relegated to a post of section foreman, a position he has held continuously in Union City since that time.
Maloy helped double track the Big Four through Union City in 1917, 1918 and 1919 and every railroad track and every improvement made on the railroad in the city as it exists today bears the brand of his handiwork somewhere and in some manner. This in itself will remain a monument to the tow-headed kid who came to Union City in 1896 and not only helped build a modern railroad empire but helped build a prosperous community as well.
And so, as E. L. Clevenger and George Maloy, two native sons, retire from service from their chosen vocations with more than 97 combined years between them, the loyalty and integrity that they displayed through all those years will remain on the railroad with their fellow employees and friends as a beacon to guide them through their service as well and the people of Union City join hands in saying-- "Well done!
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