On May 14, 1916, Caroline Kegel made a fateful decision to visit this grocery store, Friedberger and Harder’s at 109 North D Street. After making her purchases, she got in her buggy and headed back to her home near where the Schnoor Bridge now crosses the Fresno River. However, when she reached the railroad tracks on Central Avenue, she drove the horse directly into the path of a northbound train. Mrs. Kegel was thrown 60 feet, and the next day at 8:30 a.m. she died. Such was the standing of the Kegel family in Madera that all high school classes were canceled so that friends of her son, Francis Kegel, could attend the funeral. Among the group of mourners was nine-year-old Allen Harder, son of the grocer, who almost 80 years later still remembered that tragic day. (Madera Images-Bill Coate)
