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Michael Stephen Mongoven was born at Chicago in 1863. He was baptized January 18, 1863, at (Old) St. John’s church by Father John Waldron, with an uncle and aunt – John Mongovan and Susan Dorsey (Darcy) – as sponsors. The second of ten children of Dennis Henry and Catherine (Darcy) Mongovan, he spent a few years in Chicago before moving with his family to Berlin Township in Clinton County, Iowa. The Mongovens remained there for a couple years but moved several miles east to the tiny city of Clinton during the early 1870s. As expected of...
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Michael Stephen Mongoven was born at Chicago in 1863. He was baptized January 18, 1863, at (Old) St. John’s church by Father John Waldron, with an uncle and aunt – John Mongovan and Susan Dorsey (Darcy) – as sponsors. The second of ten children of Dennis Henry and Catherine (Darcy) Mongovan, he spent a few years in Chicago before moving with his family to Berlin Township in Clinton County, Iowa. The Mongovens remained there for a couple years but moved several miles east to the tiny city of Clinton during the early 1870s. As expected of so many of his generation, Michael went to work at an early age. The 1880 census shows him working at Clinton’s “sash factory” at the age of fourteen. Curtis Bros. & Co., founded in 1866, remained operational until the 1960s. The factory was near the Mississippi River and made impeccable doors, frames, moldings, blinds, and window sashes – the wooden panels that form frames that hold panes of glass. These products were shipped to places like Salt Lake City, Galveston, and Montana.
In May 1882, the Mongovens bought a farm in the northern part of Camanche Township, south of Clinton. Michael Stephen – friends and family called him “Steve” – was nineteen, eager to finish his factory stint, and ready to leave home. The railroads would punch his ticket out. By 1886, he worked as a brakeman on the St. Paul, Minneapolis, & Manitoba Railway (which merged with another railway to form the Great Northern Railway). “M.S. Mongoven” lived alone in St. Paul, according to St. Paul’s 1887-88 city directory. He soon met the 21-year-old daughter of Luxembourg immigrants, Elizabeth Susan Traufler – see The History of Nicholas Traufler. Nick and Elizabeth (Koppes) Traufler lived at St. Augustine Township, near St. Cloud, Minnesota. They were devout Catholics – son John (“Father Louis Traufler”) was a well-known Benedictine priest and daughter Anne (“Sister Mary DeSales”) a Benedictine nurse for many years.
St. Paul was a major railroad hub at the time, with tracks radiating in all directions. Some of these passed through St. Cloud – Steve resided there in 1888, when he met “Lizzie.” The Mongovens were married on February 4, 1889. The event was a hurried affair, as Elizabeth was nearly five months pregnant with her daughter, Elizabeth (Bessie). Instead of a Catholic wedding, the couple opted for a civil union in Hudson, twenty miles east of St. Paul in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. The proceeding was conducted by Mr. George Randall and witnessed by W.W. Lilly and C.C. Jones.
Steve stated that his parents were “D.H. Mongoven” and “Catherine Darcy.” He listed Chicago as his birthplace, called St. Cloud his residence, and provided “brakeman” as his occupation. Elizabeth’s parents’ names were misspelled – “Niklas Traufler” and “Elizabeth Kappers” – and Michigan was given as her place of birth.
Many railroad families moved regularly, and Steve and Elizabeth’s was no exception. On January 12, 1891, the couple’s second child, Joseph William Mongoven, arrived at St. Cloud. However, an 1891-92 city directory shows “Michael S. Mongoven” residing at 690 Burr Street in St. Paul. He was a brakeman for the St. Paul & Duluth Railway – which later was purchased by the Northern Pacific Railway. Steve’s older brother, Henry James, lived with the family and was a brakeman for the same company. In 1893, Steve, wife Elizabeth, the children, and Henry J. had moved one block west to 691 De Soto Street. Steve was a switchman and Henry a brakeman for the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, & Omaha Railway Company (the Omaha Road), according to the city directory. Their occupations were inherently dangerous – a switchman was responsible for controlling track switches, assembling trains, and switching railroad cars in the yard. The enormous cars were joined by heavy couplings called “drawheads." On April 14, 1893, while working at the C. St. P. M. & O. yard, Steve suffered a gruesome hand injury. Two weeks into his recuperation, son Henry James was born. The news article on the right appeared in the St. Paul Daily Globe on December 10, 1893. Perhaps Steve settled his suit with the railroad, but his work with that company ended. The 1894 St. Paul city directory simply says: “Mongoven, Michael S., moved to Clinton, Ia.” This coincides with the troubles his father, mother, and younger brothers were experiencing back on the farm. Steve may have returned to offer assistance. At Camanche on December 29, 1894, the family welcomed the arrival of baby John Nicholas. The six are listed under the “Mikel S. Mangorem” family of Camanche in the 1895 Iowa State Census.
By 1900, Steve had been hired by the Northern Pacific Railway Company. He rose to the position of train conductor – but not before he had waged a battle against the railroad powers to better the lives of railroaders. In the 1988 centennial book, A Meeting of the Reds: East Grand Forks 1887-1987 – Volume 1, James Mongoven (son of Henry J.) wrote: “(My grandfather) Michael was a prime mover in improving benefits for railroad workers and suffered a one year suspension for union activities.” It isn’t known what year the suspension took place or what company suspended him – but 1893-1894 (the year he returned to Clinton, Iowa) and the C. St. P. M. & O. railroad company seem likely.
Around 1898, the Mongovens left Iowa for Staples, in Todd County, Minnesota. Edward Michael, the couple’s fifth child, was born there on August 10, 1898. But they were in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, by April 1899. The “Michal S. Mogoven” family is listed in the 1900 census at on Water Street, a block east of the Red River in the city’s 4th Ward. Ultimately, Michael Stephen and Elizabeth Mongoven had seven children: Elizabeth Susanna (“Bessie”), Joseph William Mongoven (who married Harriett J. Melquist), Henry James, John Nicholas (“Jack”), Edward Michael (“Ed”), Francis Dennis (“Frank”), and a baby who died three days after its birth. Baby Edward was born in 1898. Frank was born December 23, 1900, and the infant arrived February 3, 1904, both at East Grand Forks.
The year began innocently enough for the Mongovens. In 1904, they were among nearly 300 regular parishioners at Sacred Heart, the second Catholic church built in East Grand Forks. The first was erected in 1894 but burned down just days after its opening. It was replaced by the building shown below, whose construction on the site of the original began in 1896. In 1900, after the new church was ready for use, parishioners built the pastoral residence shown in the foreground of the picture. A young, Irish-born priest, Father James F. Greene, was appointed the church’s pastor. Steve and Elizabeth were to have their 15th anniversary in early February, and their seventh baby was due around the same time. However, in the first days of that month, several newspapers carried stories of powerful blizzards sweeping across Montana and into western North Dakota. Conductor Michael Stephen’s Northern Pacific freight train – Extra East 660 – was on its usual run during one of these ripping storms. In charge of a crew that included his older brother, Henry James, Steve – whose friends and co-workers admired his steady hand – figured to bring the train home to East Grand Forks safely. What happened next altered our family’s history.
A blizzard made the tracks treacherous at dusk on Saturday, February 6, 1904. As the skies darkened, Steve Mongoven’s Extra East 660 freight train made its return trip from Pembina, North Dakota, near the U.S.-Canadian border. However, as it headed south through Cashel, the train encountered blinding snow and stalled out in a snowdrift near Miller's Cut, about three miles northeast of Grafton. The conductor instructed Brakeman Murphy to go back to Cashel to prevent the Northern Pacific Express – a passenger train traveling north from St. Paul to Winnipeg, Canada – from colliding with the snowbound freight train. Steve next cut his engine loose and plowed toward Grafton, where he telegraphed his dire situation to the Northern Pacific dispatcher at company headquarters in Staples, Minnesota.
According to official reports, Steve “mistakenly” wired that his train was stuck about one mile northeast of Grafton – in reality, it remained nearly three miles outside the town. The Staples official immediately wired Pembina with the disabled train’s position. Relief train No. 591 – consisting of two engines pointed in opposite directions with a caboose in between – began its arduous 40-mile trip south. Conductor Moriarity was in charge. Churning through the vicious Dakota storm, it eventually arrived at Cashel. There, the crew picked up Steve’s grateful brakeman, who hopped aboard 591’s forward engine. Steve had returned from Grafton to his freight train, which sat frozen near Miller’s Cut. He and Henry waited in the caboose for the arrival of the rescue train – and they remained there in sub-freezing weather in the hours after midnight.
In the weeks that followed, it was officially stated that the Northern Pacific dispatcher wired Pembina how Extra East 660 stalled two miles northeast of Grafton. He claimed to have added one extra mile for safety to the “one mile out of Grafton” estimate Conductor Mongoven had given. It is roughly seven miles from Cashel to Grafton. The rescue train slowed to 22 miles an hour as it approached Grafton, because 591’s Engineer Belch believed the stalled train was two miles northeast of town. In the Sunday 4 a.m. darkness and during a furious storm three miles northeast of Grafton, 591’s forward engine slammed into 660’s caboose. The Mongovens were the only crew members in that car. They had no warning of the impending collision, as the driving snow hampered visibility and Engineer Belch in the forward relief engine never saw 660’s signal lights. No whistle was sounded, and tons of rescue engine steel, iron, and timber suddenly impacted, crushing the stalled train’s caboose. The blunt force of the collision instantly killed Steve, and his brother was badly injured. Fires ignited immediately in the caboose and the relief train’s forward engine. Stunned crews from both trains scrambled in the pre-dawn darkness, with flames from both trains providing most of the light. Steve and Henry were removed from the wreckage as quickly as possible. Steve’s battered, burned body lay covered in the cab of one of 591’s engines, and Henry was rushed to the relief train caboose. Engineer Belch, and 660’s fireman Montgomery and brakeman Cameron all received comparatively minor injuries. Brakeman Murphy suffered from a badly frostbitten face. As Sunday dawned, Steve’s body was delivered to the undertaker at Grafton.
In the official report, Engineer Belch of rescue engine 591 estimated he was traveling around 22 miles an hour at the time of impact. He feared that if he proceeded any slower, he, too, might get stuck. He didn’t believe he was within a mile of the train when the accident occurred. The front of his relief engine was completely demolished, smashed in and filled with draw bars, links, and a miscellaneous assortment of twisted iron, broken wheels, and pieces of timber. The engine’s smokestack was knocked off, and its cab was almost entirely destroyed. The caboose of Conductor Mongoven’s Extra East 660 and the car in front of it were burned, while two other freight cars, one loaded with fish, were turned over on their sides. A wrecking train was sent to clear the tracks, but the position of the derailed and wrecked rescue engine, the bitter cold, and the snowdrift’s size prevented its crew from accomplishing their task. A rotary plow was delivered, but debris from the wreckage wasn’t cleared completely until about 7 p.m. Monday, the 8th of February. From Grafton, a Walsh County coroner’s jury held an inquest at the scene of the wreck. Their verdict: Conductor M.S. Mongoven’s mistake in reporting his train's location caused the accident.
On Tuesday, the 9th of February, many of Grafton’s citizens went to the Northern Pacific yards to look at the wreckage. The relief train’s forward engine, of course, had been virtually destroyed by the impact. A local newspaper wrote that most people were amazed that more lives weren’t lost, especially those of the rescue train’s engineer, fireman, and brakeman, all of whom were in the cab of the engine when the collision occurred. The side of that cab was badly damaged and almost torn off.
The conductor’s body was returned to East Grand Forks, where it arrived aboard a train at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning. His brother, Henry J., had been sent to the Northern Pacific hospital at Brainerd, Minnesota, where he would slowly begin to recover from his many injuries. Undertaker Moses Norman of Grand Forks, North Dakota, was asked to prepare the body for burial, and a funeral was set for Thursday from Sacred Heart Church in East Grand Forks. But in a cruel coincidence, this would become a double funeral.
Michael Stephen Mongoven was 41 years old when he died, and Elizabeth was far along in pregnancy when her husband began his final freight train run. Her baby was born Friday, the 5th of February, but died around 11 a.m., just hours before Steve’s freight train stalled in the snowdrift outside Grafton. Elizabeth was in terrible shape, physically and (especially) emotionally. Steve apparently had received a telegram and knew of his infant’s death and his wife’s condition. He was returning home for his baby’s funeral. There has been confusion over the baby’s actual birth and death dates – and even its sex. Hopefully, the following will eliminate some of the misunderstanding. The birth certificate is shown on this page, but the birth date is incorrect. A flurry of newspaper articles appeared on Tuesday (Feb 9) and Wednesday (Feb 10). The Bismarck Daily Tribune (Feb 9) stated: “(Mongoven’s) little son, 4 days old, (who) had died Saturday at noon, and (the) remains were awaiting the return of the father from his trip.” Therefore, the baby wasn’t born on the 9th. The Grand Forks Daily Herald (Feb 9) published an article, a paragraph of which is shown below, stating the infant was born Friday (Feb 5) and died Saturday (Feb 6). The full article – “East Side: Conductor was Killed” – is on page 56. The baby’s birth and death were an ordeal for Elizabeth, and she badly needed medical attention. In fact, Father Greene only broke the news of her husband’s death to her on Monday, the 8th of February. Another question concerns the baby’s sex. The Bismarck newspaper mentioned above states the infant was a “son.” But the birth certificate lists the sex as female. Note that “or midwife” was crossed out, so that the attending physician’s name (Samuel H. Irwin, a Grand Forks doctor) is given. Also, “male” was crossed out, leaving “female” as the child’s sex. It seems certain the baby was a girl. Birth certificates are far more convincing than newspaper articles. Finally, stories told by family members say that father and infant were buried together in the same casket.
The funeral was held Thursday, February 11, 1904, from Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Steve was a well-respected man and liked by railroaders and townspeople in his small community, according to newspaper accounts, so the funeral was attended by many. The pallbearers were all members of the O.R.C. – Order of Railroad Conductors. They included: D.F. Miller, W.H. Kelsey, W.H. McGraw, J.M. Cooper, C.F. Perry, and W.H. Schuyler. Father Kenney of Grafton, Father Louis of Moorhead, and Father Hufsnagel of Crookston assisted Father Greene in celebrating the Requiem High Mass. Elizabeth’s brother, Father Louis Traufler, O.S.B., arrived by train from Bismarck, North Dakota, to pay his respects and to comfort his sister, niece, and five nephews. Gretchen Gollinger sang two lovely solos, “One Sweetly Solemn Thought” and “Face to Face,” accompanied by Miss Foster on the church organ. When the Mass finally ended, a procession crossed the bridge into North Dakota and arrived at Grand Forks’ Calvary Cemetery. Michael Stephen Mongoven and his infant daughter were laid to rest in section 8, row 5 of the cemetery grounds. A proper “Mongoven” granite marker was added years later. The family plot now holds the remains of son and daughter-in-law, Henry J. and Alda (Driscoll) Mongoven, and wife and mother Elizabeth Mongoven. No identifying marker can be found for the infant.
As time passed, Elizabeth’s condition improved. Her six kids ranged in age from fourteen (Bessie) to three (Frank). Since no railroad pension system was in place in 1904, all were left in need of financial assistance. Elizabeth filed a claim against the railway company. A Walsh County coroner’s jury had pinned the blame for the accident directly upon her husband’s alleged “stalled train location error.” However, not everybody agreed with their verdict. Less than a week after the accident a newspaper quizzed Father James Greene, who vigorously defended his parishioner. In a blunt, slamming indictment against the Northern Pacific Railway Company, Father Greene lamented: “…He always knew what to do, and how to do it promptly in every emergency. This is the opinion often repeated to me by experienced railroad men who knew him. It is to be regretted that in all cases of this nature the selfish interests of those who reap the gains, but run no risks, would prompt them to asperse the character and efficiency of their employees…I may add that I have it from the highest source that public opinion in Grafton does not coincide with the verdict of the jury, and gives all credit and praise to Conductor Mongoven.”
By mid-October 1904, a conflict had developed regarding the administration of Michael Mongoven’s estate. Henry James Mongoven wished to be made administrator of his brother’s estate, but Elizabeth and Father Greene petitioned the court for the same privilege and duty. Judge Thoreson turned down Henry’s request, and the widow and her pastor were named administrators. Meanwhile, Father Greene pressed the Northern Pacific for a settlement on Elizabeth’s behalf. The company was rumored to have offered a $5,000 payment. In early November 1904, Elizabeth and Father Greene traveled by train to St. Paul to negotiate with company officials who seemed eager to settle without going to trial. Finally, on the 8th of November and nine months after her husband’s death, the Northern Pacific settled Elizabeth’s claim. No attorneys were involved, and she received $7,000 and “other satisfactory concessions,” according to newspaper accounts.
Elizabeth never seemed to recover emotionally from the deaths of her husband and baby. Her mental state of mind notwithstanding, Elizabeth and her six children lived at 114 3rd Street in East Grand Forks when the 1905 Minnesota State Census was taken. |