He was an engineer for the Norfolk & Western RR for 38 years, had lived on East Ninth Street and then on Liberty Street in Winston-Salem for many years before moving to Germanton a few months before his death.

He is shown in the 1920 census as being 61 years of age. His wife was listed as Sallie Ann Marshall Matthews (his fourth?? wife)--47, and his children living in the home at that time: Riley K.--22, Marshall--14, Franklin V.--12, Sallie L.--8, Reuben Z.--6, and Annie E.--4.

A book "Tarheel Tombstones & the Tales They Tell" by Henry King has the tale of how this man came to be a railroad engineer.

It states that as a young man he had worked for a short period at a West Virginia coal mine and tinkered with the engines that pulled the coal cars. On a cold January day in 1889, he was part of a track gang working with a pick and shovel toting rails on a track north of Winston-Salem when the locomotive of the work train broke down. It would be two weeks before a mechanic could be brought from Norfolk to fix it. Levi stepped up and told the RR President that he would like to try his hand at repairing the locomotive. He was told that if he could he would be made an engineer. He fixed it and became a passenger train engineer until he retired.

His usual run was between Winston-Salem, NC and Roanoke, VA. Thousands of people living along the route knew his friendly wave as he passed. When he died, his funeral was scheduled to take into account the time the passenger train usually passed the vicinity of the church. An arrangement was made with the Norfolk & Western Railroad for the train to stop for a two minute period and have the engineer toll the train bell in remembrance. Inside the church, the mourners sang a departing hymn "Life Is Like a Mountain Railway".