3 A.M. Fri. we got to Emporia where Tom Allen worked. Topeka 4:40. Got to K.C. at 7:15 this morning. Ate breakfast & was transferred in a bus from the Union Depot to C.M. & St. Paul & at 9:50 we are moving on our way to Chilli. Got there at 1 P.M. & got home at about 4P.M. & then I felt like singing “Home, Sweet Home”. The next thing on the docket was to go see Mary, whom I believe was glad to see the “wanderer” back home.
Jesse has not mentioned John’s or Cousin Tom’s names since before they left Castella and went to San Francisco. John is with Jesse because they are both going home, but there is a possibility that Cousin Tom traveled with them. It seems unlikely because this post refers to Tom working in Emporia, Kansas, in the past tense (He was working as a hired hand in Kansas in the 1885 state census). Tom continues to work in the Northwest until his death in 1921. He’s not coming back to Utica for a visit because Jesse never mentions him after returning home.
Jesse says that they arrived at the Union Depot located in the Kansas City West Bottoms. Then he said that they rode a bus (possibly a trolly or a horse-drawn omnibus) to a second location to get on the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul. Before the current Union Station, there were two stations in Kansas City, so Jesse means that they had to go to the newer Grand Central Station on 2nd and Wyandotte Streets in the River Market area to get on the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul line (also known as the Chicago Great Western and Southwest Limited). For train enthusiasts, he rode the eastbound train No. 26.
