Page 4 of the June 3, 1903 issue of The Spokane Press carried this article that was just too good not to share:

“No. 5, westbound, which left Pendleton Wednesday morning on time in charge of Conductor Maher, was doomed to experience a great novelty before reaching Portland, says the Pendleton East Oregonian. While counting his tickets, the train speeding along at 40 miles an hour, within 30 minutes of Portland, an elderly gentleman who proved to be a doctor informed him that a woman, Mrs. Sears of Sumpter, in the chair car, was in a delicate situation and would undoubtedly add another passenger to his list before reaching Portland. 

“The conductor was horror-struck. It was too near the end of the run to allow such an annoying thing to happen. Besides, No. 5 was on time, and he would not stop and lose five minutes arguing the case with the woman for a month’s salary. He swore vengeance on Conductor Nash, who turned the woman over to him in this condition. His first thought was to ask Jim Randall, the engineer, what to do, as he always did on all previous perplexing occasions. But he happened to think that Jim was always out on the road when such things happened at home and his wife attended to them, so Jim would not know. 

“He then determined to put on a bold front and ask the woman to wait till she got to Portland; she had waited this long, she could certainly put if off 25 minutes longer. While he was frantically wondering what to do, things were happening over in the chair car, and by the time he had resolved to make the best of it, a 10-pound bouncing boy had been added to his passenger list and his bosom swelled with pride to think of the good luck of the youngster who might have been born in the North Powder desert, had it not been for the fact that his train was on time.

“His feeling of enmity towards the little woman who had caused the trouble was swept away. He admire her for her judgment as she had evidently intended to reach Portland before the momentous event happened and had only missed her guess by 20 minutes, a feat which even an O.R. & N. conductor would not accomplish.”

Anybody have a Mr. Sears, born in 1903 on a railroad coach between Pendleton and Portland, Oregon on their family tree???

(Thanks to a delightful little Spokane publication, Spokane Time Traveler, for this bit.)