Editor’s note: After getting requests from readers, the Albert Lea Tribune asked the Wells Mirror to reprint this story. The Tribune thanks the Mirror for granting permission.

Shannon Zebro uses words like amazing and ironic to describe her family connection with the city of Wells.

When Shannon’s husband, Matt Zebro, received a position with the home office of Wells Federal Bank a few years ago, the young family moved to Wells. All Shannon knew about the community was that her parents had lived in Wells from 1970 to 1972. “My mom, Joy (Anderson) Hanel, helped to start the Vocational Center in the basement of city hall,” she said.

Shannon (then Anderson) grew up in North Mankato and never thought much about the small town to the south until she moved here.

Then, a couple of years ago, Shannon’s grandmother, Jeanne, who had lived for many years in Arizona, sent Shannon a small package. It contained a postcard, some newspaper clippings, and a faded and well-creased piece of paper titled “Verdict of Jury,” dated Nov. 25, 1919. A visit to the Wells Mirror office and a quick check in the old newspaper files confirmed Shannon’s unusual story. Her great-great grandfather was killed in a railroad accident right in Wells.

“About 1 o’clock on Tuesday afternoon the entire town was shocked by the sad intelligence that Mr. McGee, pioneer railroad man had been instantly killed in the railroad yards at this place,” the story begins in the Wells Forum Advocate, dated Nov. 27, 1919. The Wells Mirror of Nov. 26 used more gruesome detail in describing how Mr. McGee was crushed between two freight cars and says, “Death must have been almost instantaneous.” The Mirror explains that the accident occurred “some distance east of the freight depot.”

The Advocate tells that Oscar McGee “was an old-time railroad man, having been on the Southern Minnesota Division for about 30 years.” He was generally a conductor, but at this time was braking. Both papers say that Dr. P.F. Holm, the county coroner, was called immediately and that an inquest was held. The papers vary only slightly in stating the results of that inquest, and the results match the hand-written piece of paper in Shannon’s possession.

“We find that death was caused by being crushed between the coupler of a freight car and the tender of engine No. 4116 of an extra freight on the C.M & St. Paul Ry., going east, while in Minn. We attach no blame to yards of said railway at Wells, nor the crew of said train, but a defective coupler on the car in question, in our opinion, contributed to the cause of the accident.” The names of the jurors are listed in the Wells Mirror: Dr. P.F. Holm, C.F. Sweet, P.S. Buscho, B.O. Ensrud, A.J. Anderson, H.C. Seedorf, J.A. Bush.

Both papers state that McGee and his wife lived in Austin, and that they had one son (Bertram) who had not yet been mustered out of the service after World War I. Details in the Mirror article also say the railroad man “has a nice home and is said to be quite well-to-do.”

Shannon laughs at this piece of trivia, which seems more like gossip than news. “They put that in the paper?” she asked.

Bertram McGee later married Vivian, and they had one daughter, Jeanne. “Jeanne is my grandmother,” said Shannon. “She was an Anderson, and her son was my dad, Charlie.”

And that’s where the postcard fits in. The picture on the front of the postcard is of the old Leland Hotel in Wells. “Our home,” is inscribed on the card. Shannon is unsure whether this was still a hotel, or a home at that time, but friends of the McGees sent them the card. And she says Grandma Jeanne told her that she and her dad would hang out there, and that the guys would “sit around the old hotel and smoke cigars and play poker.”

Shannon knows that Bertram, her great-grandfather, worked with something called “cold trains,” and said her grandmother emphasized the word cold and not coal as one might think. She said “cold food trains.”

“Grandma said that was one reason that towns were built only nine miles apart,” she added, “because there was no way to keep food cold, and they had to deliver cold foods fast.”

Shannon’s grandmother has since died, so she can’t ask any more questions.

But she would love to find anyone in this community who might have known her family members, or have known about the story. “Not growing up here, I knew no one,” she concluded. “Now I have a tie here.” The knowledge of her family history here in Wells has spurred an interest in the restored Wells Railroad Depot and future museum, and Shannon has joined the Wells Historical Society’s museum committee. “I thought, ‘I have to do something with the depot,’ ” she said. “It is important to keep local history alive.”