b'Will the Lights Be White?including the hit poem Sweet Marie, inspiredOft, when I feel my engine swerve,by his second wife. This poem was set toAs oer strange rails we fare,music by Raymon Moore and became aI strain my eye around the curvepopular success in 1893 (and was laterFor what awaits us there.featured in the 1947 film Life With Father).When swift and free she carries meOne of his notable works, Tales Of An Engineer: With Rhymes Of The Rail (1895), isThrough yards unknown at night,a collection of poems and stories capturingI look along the line to seethe rhythm and energy of the railroadsThat all the lamps are white.and those who worked on them. AlongThe blue light marks the crippled car,with authoring 17 books, he was a regularThe green light signals slow;contributor to magazines like The Youth\'sThe red light is a danger light,Companion and Harper\'s Weekly, whereThe white light, Let her go.his vivid depictions of Western life and theAgain the open fields we roam,rugged and adventurous spirit of railroadersAnd, when the night is fair,and the landscapes they traversed captured readers\' imaginations. His literaryI look up in the starry domecontributions earned him a respected placeAnd wonder whats up there.in early Western American literature. For who can speak for those who dwellBehind the curving sky?Warman and his wife lived in New York,No man has ever lived to tellWashington for several years from whereJust what it means to die.they travelled Europe, the Far East, andSwift toward lifes terminal I trend,Alaska, settling in 1899 in London, Ontario,The run seems short tonight;where he did consulting and writing workGod only knows whats at the end for the Grand Trunk Railway. Around 1904, Western Canada experienced a railwayI hope the lamps are white.construction boom, with the Canadian Northern rail line expanding across theFrom the book of songs and rhymes, western territories. Warman travelledSongs of Cy Warman, 1911with the rail crews, writing about the rail line expansion which helped encourage immigration to the newly-formed provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Cy Warman married his first wife, Ida Blanche Hays, in 1879 and On April 11, 1914, Cy Warman died in Chicagothey had one daughter, Charlotte after suffering a stroke that left himin 1881. Ida died in childbirth (as paralyzed and ill for several months. did the baby) in 1887. Cy married his second wife, Myrtle Marie In 1905, the settlement initially knownJones, in 1892. They had three as "Diamond," named for the diamond- sons: Dana Cy, born in 1894, Bryan shaped intersection of the Grand Trunk andin 1896, and Robert in 1897, and a Canadian Pacific railway lines, was renameddaughter, Vonda Marie, in 1899. Warman. This name honoured Cy Warman,(Vonda, Saskatchewan is named recognizing the city\'s origins as a railway hubafter her.)and its deep connection to the rail system.125'