A to Z Challenge 2024 - Professionally Speaking - P is for Pullman Conductor

I'm jumping in this entry from my family to the family of my husband, Keys Rhodes, to his grandfather Andrew Lewis Rhodes (1882-1966), who began as a Pullman Conductor in June of 1912, and ended that career in retirement in September of  1952.  

He was born 23 September 1882 in Morgantown, Pike County, Ohio, son of Samuel H. Rhoades and Ida May Dewey.  It was during Andrew Rhodes's lifetime that the spelling of the familial surname was changed, for reasons unknown.  Andrew Rhodes spelled the surname both ways in his Railroad Retirement paperwork, finally settling on the spelling we all bear today.  I knew the Rhodes family from church since I was 7 years old, when Keys and I first met.  Andrew Rhodes had a wonderful thick head of pure-white hair in his later years.  He died 12 March 1966, while Keys and I were in college.

He began his railroad career in February of 1903 as a clerk for United States Express Company, a freight delivery company that operated from 1854 to 1914.  He alternated between Clerk and Messenger in Ohio until June of 1912, at which time he signed on with Pullman as a conductor and was assigned to Jacksonville, Florida.  Early on, he served in the Tampa area, and that is where he met Della Mae Marshall of Lakeland.  They were married in Lakeland on October 14, 1918.(1)  A year later, almost to the day, their son L. Marshall Rhodes was born in Tampa.  Their movements can be traced to Jacksonville around 1922 by an Abstract of Title for a period from 3 November 1922 to 26 March 1928.(2)  Their daughter, Della Mae Rhodes, Jr., was born 12 February 1925 in Jacksonville.  The family remained in Jacksonville.

(1) Andrew Lewis Rhodes, Railroad Retirement File. United States of America, Railroad Retirement Board, copy conveyed by letter to M. Keys Rhodes dated 11 July 2006.

(2) Title & Trust of Florida, Abstract of Title, 3 November 1922-26 March 1928, for Andrew Lewis Rhodes.  Original in possession of Karen Packard Rhodes.