LOVE AND A TRAIN WHISTLE---An often told story of love and a Train Whistle that touches the heart and reminds us of a time when love and fidelity were synonymous occurred in the early 1900's.  An epitaph on a stone in Fairview Cemetery is inscribed "Inez Mills, d. of A.H. Mills, Jan. 1 1893, March 11, 1911. Beautiful, lovely, she was given a fair bud on earth to bloom in heaven." No praise written on a tombstone however can equal the eulogy of brokenhearted Tom Williams to his dead sweetheart whom he never forgot.  It had no words, but no one who heard it ever forgot it.  Tom was an engineer for the Gulf Coast and Santa Fe Railroad; and from the first, his train whistle was distinctive, and people recognized it.  During stopovers in the town he met, courted and won the hand of Inez Mills.  She would get into her buggy and meet him near the tracks on Shelbyville Street.  On a particular occasion, while she was waiting for Tom to arrived; he in anticipation, let out a whistle blast that spooked the horse and the buggy overturned; Inez was killed and was buried in Fairview Cemetery.  Tom never forgot his sweetheart, and until he retired he never let us forget her.  From about five miles out, from Fairview Cemetery, he would let out long, lonesome blasts on that special whistle until he reached and passed the cemetery.   He never married, and only after he retired did he take his special whistle with him to Jasper where the lived until his death. 

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