Donald and Marjorie Varnadoe of Georgia were traveling cross-country when a train derailed in Montana on Saturday. Zach Schneider, a computer scientist from Illinois, also was killed.
Donald and Marjorie Varnadoe of St. Simons Island, Ga., were on a long-awaited cross-country vacation to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary when the Amtrak train they were traveling in derailed in Montana on Saturday. On the same train, Zachariah Schneider, a computer scientist from Fairview Heights, Ill., was traveling with his wife, Rebecca, to Portland, Ore., where they spent their honeymoon in 2016. The Varnadoes and Mr. Schneider died when eight of the 10 passenger cars on the Empire Builder train jumped the tracks. Mr. Schneider was less than two months shy of his fifth wedding anniversary. As investigators continued to look for a cause of the derailment, relatives and friends struggled with grief over three lives that ended on a remote stretch of railway near Joplin, Mont. Donald Varnadoe,74, worked in the real estate business for 45 years,24 of them as an associate broker with Coldwell Banker Access Realty in Georgia, in the city of Brunswick and on St. Simons Island, a co-worker said. He was a hard worker but was often called upon for his spiritual side, enlisted to say prayers during group lunches and other office gatherings in Brunswick. Mr. Varnadoe delivered his last prayer with his team members on Sept.21, at the end of a monthly sales meeting and just before they ate the brownies that his wife had baked for their lunch. “He prays for the people who are sick and passed away,” said Robert Kozlowski, a managing broker who worked with Mr. Varnadoe for 18 years. “He actually said in his prayer, ‘Life is short,’ and we should tell people every day how we feel,” he said in an interview. Mr. Varnadoe, who grew up in Georgia, lived with his wife, Marjorie Pitman Varnadoe,72, on St. Simons Island. The couple moved into their house in 1976, Mr.
