In 1883, Downey, along with his wife, Maria Jesus Guirado, the daughter of a prominent Mexican gentleman of Sonora, were involved in a train accident at Tehachapi Pass, when their train plunged into a ravine.
Following the accident and the death of Downey's wife, his friend Frank M. Pixley introduced him to the twenty-year-old Yda Hillis Addis, a new writer at Pixley's San Francisco journal The Argonaut.