They embrace technology and live ….
They embrace technology and live a communal lifestyle based on a 500-year history.
Ten women from Hidden Valley Colony south of Gildford in neighboring Hill County brought bologna and cheese sandwiches and fed passengers in the gym from 6 to 8 p.m.
The women wore polka- dot headscarves and austere homemade dresses. Glaser wanted to take pictures of them but did not, out of respect. He made a mental note to read up on them later.
Amtrak officials and law enforcement brought luggage from the crash site and asked passengers to retrieve what belonged to them.
As passengers’ stories unspooled in the gym, Teresa Violett marveled at their attitudes. They were thankful for the food and shelter. But mostly, they were just glad to be alive.
Glaser didn’t want to rely on Amtrak anymore. Still in shock, he called his friend Greta to help him learn about his whereabouts and options for getting home. He made a plan to get to Great Falls and then fly to Oakland. He learned a motel was in walking distance and called to make a reservation.
But volunteers didn’t let him walk. They gave him a ride to the Liberty Quick Stop convenience store, which is the face of the MX Motel. He checked in at about 7 p.m.
Noticing the freezer case next to the counter, Glaser had to try the made-in-Montana Wilcoxson’s ice cream. He sat down outside, noticed the huge grain elevators across the road to the north and remembers thinking, “Boy, you know this is the best ice cream I’ve ever had and this is just the weirdest thing I’ve ever been through.”
He still needed to get the hundred miles to Great Falls the next day but given the help and care he’d already experienced, he didn’t worry.
Somehow it would happen. Roughly eight hours after the derailment, only a handful of people from the Empire Builder remained in Chester. Many had been bused 40 miles to Shelby, where there were more motel rooms. The gym was empty by midnight.
The sirens had stopped. The flashing lights were gone. The rush of people and traffic, only a memory. Even the rails fell silent. In a place where trains rumbled through town regularly, their absence in the coming days would feel disorienting.
As crews finished up, Tara Hendrickson, the ambulance director for Liberty County Emergency Services, texted someone who’d offered to cook a meal for the ambulance and fire crews earlier in the day.
It was 11:30 p.m. “Is there any way that you could still make that meal?” she asked.
In short order, a spaghetti and salad dinner was laid out on tables in the ambulance barn. It was 12:30 a.m. by the time the crews sat down to eat.
“It makes you have a little bit more faith in humanity when it’s so totally divided right now,” said Hendrickson. “Especially in today’s world, it’s really nice when we can come together and work together.”
On Sunday morning, Glaser walked into the convenience store for coffee and Jesse Anderson, the Liberty Quick Stop and MX Motel owner, said, “Steve, they’re going to pick you up at 11 o’clock to take you to Great Falls.”
Anderson also offered Glaser a premade burrito and, being a food snob from the Bay Area, he initially refused. After deciding he needed some nourishment, he found it to be the best thing he’d ever eaten.
Retired farmers trickled in for coffee and included Glaser in their conversations. When it came time to check out of the motel, Anderson refused to take any payment.
On time at 11, Glenda Hanson — the Liberty County Council on Aging director who had driven a bus back and forth from the crash site to the triage stations the previous day — picked up Glaser and several other passengers and took them to Shelby. There, Glaser caught another bus to Great Falls.
He was home in California a few days before he learned from his brother-in-law that two of the people who died in the crash were from Georgia. Glaser realized they were Donald and Marjorie Varnadoe, the friends he had made in the sightseer lounge car. A third person, Zach Schneider from Illinois, also died in that car. Had Glaser not been waylaid by watching The Great British Baking Show,
he might have been there with them.
On Tuesday, Sept. 28, a train rolled through Chester for the first time in three days. It was something like a return to order. A way of marking time again.
Soon, the cards and letters began to arrive.
“I was very, very, lucky,” Steve Glaser wrote to the Liberty County Commissioners. “First, to have survived uninjured, and second, that the accident happened in Liberty County.
Iwonka Piotrowska and David Resnick of Rockville Centre, N.Y., wrote a letter to the Liberty County Times. “The two of us were in the observation car, and while our own injuries were not serious, it was a life-changing and harrowing experience nonetheless, and we will forever be grateful to all of you for your help that day…” People began sending money to the Maan brothers, owners of the Chester Supermarket, thanking them for their help. But they didn’t want reimbursement. They donated the proceeds to the community’s school. “They can use it for kids,” Ricky Maan said, “for their future.”
The 911 dispatchers of Newtown, Conn., who’d responded to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School reached out by email to the Liberty County dispatchers and sheriff. They said they were thinking of the Montana crew and wanted to check in with them. They sent a care package of medallions and a box of candy.
Rebecca Schneider, who lost her 28-year-old husband Zach in the disaster, wrote on Facebook: “I also want to express my gratitude to the people of Chester, Montana, who cared for me, housed me and advocated for me while I was away from home and trying [to] navigate this nightmare. I do not know how I will survive without the love of my life, but I take comfort in knowing there are people who support me.”
Yet none of these Good Samaritans will accept the label of hero. Some wouldn’t even allow the media to use their names.
They said they didn’t do anything special. They simply responded to a crisis. It’s the small-town, big-hearted way.
Exactly a week after the crash, Steve Glaser got a phone call from a Montana number. It was Jesse Anderson, checking on him and asking for his address.
A few days later, a postcard from Liberty County showed up.
Steve, Greetings from the middle of nowhere!
We are glad to know that you made it back home safe.
Looking forward to the day we can see you again under better circumstances!
~Jesse and the crew at the MX Motel!
Glaser already has plans to go back in May — this time, by car.
He dreams of a VIP tour of the Wilcoxson’s Ice Cream facility in Livingston, Mont. He’s even contemplated quitting his job to go to work for Wilcoxson’s.
In the quality control department, of course — as a taste-tester.
( Editor’s Note: This story originally ran in the
Havre Daily News.)
