James Leroy Stewart
Kentucky Post, Saturday, 17 January 1942, page 1
NEWPORT SOLDIER- A train crash at Peria, Ark. late Friday brought death to one Newport soldier and minor injury to another, according to dispatches reaching here Saturday. Twenty-one year old James Leroy Stewart, 130 E Second street, was killed when a Missouri Pacific train carrying a large number of soldiers to Texas, crashed into a switch engine at the little town, 40 miles south of Little Rock, Ark. Both victims met with disaster but one week after they had been inducted into the armed forces at Ft Thomas.
Young Stewart, who had been employed as a machine operator for the Schultz Baking Co. Cincinnati, married Miss Ruby Clark of Lee County, Virginia, June 1 of last year. She is to become a mother. His mother, Mrs. Foley Hatfield, W Third Streeet, Newport, recalled Saturday that she had a premonitiont hat disaster was in the offing when she told her son goodbuy at the troop train on Saratoga street, Newport, Thursday night.
"I just felt like something terrible was going to happen. I was afraid those Japs would do something to wreck the train before they got there. I tried to hide my fear as the train pulled away.
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Kentucky Post, Tuesday, 27 January 1942, page 1
GRAPHIC DETAILS-A graphic description of the Ft Thomas troop train wreck near Peria Ark. Jan 16, is contained in a letter written by Pvt. Leo C Schneider, a passenger on the troop train, to his parents and grandmother in Dayton. Pvt. Schneider was one of the Ft Thomas contingent en route to Camp Wallace, Tex. where e is attached to Battery A, 32nd CATB. His parents are Mr. and Mrs. Leo Schneider, operators of the Mecca Cafe, 528 Sixth avenue, Dayton.
A Newport soldier, James Leroy Stewart, 21, of 130 E Second st. Newport was killed.