HI
I've also posted this on the US board
I'm trying to find the burial place of Lilian Maude Bingham (nee Cutsforth) . The story is quite sad. Lilian moved over to Canada to marry Joseph Pasco Bingham - her cousin, he had emigrated from the the UK around 1906, Lilian arrived in 1911. Family stories say that she was unhappy in Canada and went home with her 2 children Ivy and Lily but Joseph wanted her to come back. Lilian and the 2 children arrived back in Canada on 19th December 1919 on the Empress of France. Shortly after arriving they boarded a train and this was involved in a head on collison. Lilian and her daughter Lily ( aged 3) died. I haven't been able to prove yet that Lilian and her daughter were actually on the train as I can't find any passanger lists for the train but the story ties in with what I've been told from family members. The crash happened near Onawa Maine and I was wondering how I would find out where their bodies were buried and if there is a gravestone
Thanks Fiona
This is the report from The New York Times
20th December 1919
C.P.R. TRAIN WRECK KILLS 23, INJURES 50
Freight and Negro immigrant special in head-on collision in Maine
Wreckage catches fire
Many of the dead and injured burned - engineers of both trains among the dead
Onawa, Me, Dec 20 - Twenty three deaths resulted from a head-on collision between an immigrant train and a freight train on the Canadian Pacific Railway two miles west of Onawa station today. Seventeen persons were killed outright and six died after being removed from the wreckage. Fifty passengers were injured, many of them seriously. Fred Wilson and William Bagley, engineers and Henniger and Hutchins,fireman, of the trains, are amongst the dead. Six of the other victims were children. Fourteen bodies had been taken from the wreckage tonight. Those of the engineers and one of the fireman had not been recovered.
The passanger train was running as the third section of the immigrant special, two sections of which had passed the freight while it was on a siding. On board were a few returned Canadian soldiers and nearly 300 immigrants, mostly English and Scotch, who were landed from the steamer, Empress of France at St John NB yesterday. They had come over in the steerage but most of them were well dressed and had a large quantity of baggage all of which was destroyed in the wreck. So far as could be learned tonight, the collision resulted from a misunderstanding of the orders given to Bagley, engineer of the freight train. The fact that the train was running in three sections is believed to have led to the confusion, the engineer apparently thinking that he had a clear track when he left the siding.
The engine and the first two cars of the passenger train were telescoped by the freight, The wreckage caught fire and two coaches the baggage car were burned. A special train was rushed to the scene and most of the injured were taken to Brownsville Junction. There they received treatment in the railroad YMCA building. More than half of them were suffering from broken limbs or severe injuries to the body. After receiving first aid twenty of them were sent to Bangor on a special train tonight and placed in hospitals there. Six of the most seriously injured remained in Onawa tonight, their condition being too critical to permit removal.