Don Varnadoe, 74, had spent months watching videos about train trips in preparation for his cross-country trip to celebrate his 50th anniversary with his wife, Margie, 72.
Robert Kozlowski, Don’s boss at Coldwell Banker Access Realty, said that everyone in the office knew about the big anniversary trip.
“He [Don] said, ‘This is our trip of a lifetime and we’re so looking forward to it!,’” Kozlowski said.
According to Kozlowski, Don and Margie loved others and were well-loved at the office. Margie would often stop by the office with brownies, flowers and other gifts. Don would work every day and would lead the sales staff in prayer before meetings.
Before the couple left, Margie gifted one more pan of brownies for the office.
“If you want an example of how to treat people, Don and Margie were them. With their faith and the way they treated people, they’re in a good place, I think,” Kozlowski said.
Don called his co-workers days before the accident while the couple was in Georgia to tell them just how great the vacation was.
Investigators do not know what caused the derailment but are continuing to investigate. Along with Don and Margie, Zachariah Schnieder, a 29-year-old Illinois man, was killed in the accident. He is survived by his wife, who was also on the train.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
The Amtrak Empire Builder that was going from Chicago to Seattle crashed Saturday afternoon near Joplin, a town of about 200 near the Canadian border. The train, carrying 141 passengers and 16 crew members, had two locomotives and 10 cars, eight of which derailed, with some tipping onto their sides. Residents in the farm community mobilized that day to help injured passengers.
According to investigators, the train was going under the speed limit at 75 mph when it derailed off a gradual curve, derailing eight of the 10 cars, possibly ejecting passengers.
Investigators are studying video from the train and another locomotive that went over the same track a little over an hour earlier, National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg said Monday. The derailed train also had a black box that records everything happening in the train, he said. One possibility is a problem with the tracks, perhaps from heat-induced buckling, railroad crash experts speculate.
Kozlowski was arriving at church Sunday in Georgia when he got a text message alerting him of a rumor circulating that a tragedy had befallen the Varnadoes. A phone call to a family member confirmed the terrible news that the couple had been killed in the derailment.
The Varnadoes had lived 45 years on St. Simons Island, home to about 15,000 people just over an hour’s drive south of Savannah. Kozlowski said Don Varnadoe loved to tell the story of how the moving truck arrived on July 4, 1976—the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Margie Varnadoe was retired from the Glynn County public school system, where she had long worked as a teacher and an administrator. Her husband sold real estate for more than four decades, and showed no sign of slowing down.