Stories Alive

The Times has changed how it does obits and created a new position for an obit writer. The stories started this week. Two fine offerings so far.

Check out Andy Meacham on a guy who loved trains: By all accounts, Bob Frohne was obsessed with trains. At his behest, his wife, Minnie, would hang out the passenger window of their station wagon, a microphone in hand. As trains ambled down tracks that ran parallel to the road, Minnie would record every chug, thump and whistle.

It was a scene Minnie's nieces and nephews knew well. Their uncle Bob would often show them his collection of movies featuring trains - North by Northwest, Doctor Zhivago or Strangers on a Train - and force them to watch documentaries about locomotives.

"Boring movies," said Christa Vivolo, 37.

Frohne died Wednesday in St. Petersburg. He was 83.

In the basement of the Webster, N.Y., home he lived in for 30 years, Frohne created the masterpiece he never stopped talking about: an O-gauge Lionel train village.

It took up most of the basement, with trains running simultaneously past churches and stores and houses that lit up at night. When they approached the streets, a blinking gate would go down. Frohne, an electrical engineer, did all the wiring.

One of his nieces called the village "a humongous town." Another called it "his stress release." The village was where he retired when after-dinner conversation turned to matters he didn't care about. The village was the sum of everything he believed in. Order. Dependability. Every part with its purpose.

And Stephanie Hayes on a woman's promise: It was 1945 and Montez Green lay dying, a tumor intruding on her brain. She was only 32.

Her body shook.

"God, if I'm dying, here I am. If you're healing me, let me feel this in my head."

Her hands flew up to her head. Whispers echoed like cannon booms. She leapt from bed and started speaking in tongues.

The doctor had never seen anything like it.