Threshing Time - Part 3 - A Legacy

 Threshing time brings light to the eyes of old men and women, and even not-so-old men and women all across rural America. The same is true at our farm. At threshing time we hear the reminiscing of memories both at the thresher man’s table and while leaning on a fork out in the field. In the days when threshing crews were commonplace, folks became well practiced in this art which they love to pass on. 85 year old men who can’t even remember what they ate for breakfast, set their forks in motion during threshing time with the muscle memory of acquired skills. Us young folk have a lot to learn yet, but we’ve made memories to share too. Some of which are just stories I’ve heard enough times that I only think I remember them as actual events. Many are the memories of my cousins, George, our horses, the good ol’ 10-20, and Mama and Pa as the farm comes so alive with the joy of the season. And there are many others that leave a lasting impression too.

Bill Miske and George Hoffmann theshing in 
the barn in 1989.

I was one year old when Bill Miske came to thresh at our farm, at least that’s what it says on the back of the photo. He walked in an awkward shuffle with a broom stick. His legs had been crushed at some point in his life and he was put to bed with sandbags packed in around his legs. I don’t suppose he was expected to live at the time. Yet, at 95 years old, he was lending a hand on our threshing rig. A “chief thresher man” he was called. The belt that ran from the tractor to the thresh machine was slipping a bit that day. Bill shuffled off to the house to inquire to Mama, “Madam? Do you have any Karo syrup?” Though disputed by some and believed to attract varmints(which seems likely), corn syrup can provide a good belt dressing. It. worked well for us that day. Pa told me that he had never seen a 95 year old man eat so much as Bill ate that day. I guess a days work will earn you an appetite no matter how old you are!  Mama tells me Bill’s father was born in the 1850s. History is much closer than you think - to imagine that I met someone when I was young who’s father would have remembered when the Civil War raged in the United States.

Hank Schact was another fond memory, a friend to my folks, and neighbor to my husband growing up. He worked on a threshing crew as a young man, spending his summers traveling farm to farm. Even at 90, he’d get a little worked up recalling which farms served their beer to the threshers watered down. 70 years can’t even fade the memory of such an unforgivable offense. These are the things most remember about threshing, not the work, the sweat, or the sun. They remember the dinners served and the beer drunk. They remember the friends they made and the pranks they pulled. Sometimes even the girls they met. On a bright sunny day a few years back, Hank picked up a fork and loaded his last bundle wagon at 85 years old. I’ll never forget the smile of that old man up on the steam engine platform, grinning from ear to ear like a little boy who just got his first Red Ryder.

Verna on the left in both photos - Then and Now.

Verna Yeadeke’s father, Walter Keller loved steam engines. So much so he fell in with a fellow named Fred who owned one. Fred had a daughter whom Walter eventually married, built a house, and had a daughter with. Verna remembers her father’s love for steam power. In a photo you can see sitting in the dirt near an engine running in the background. That engine in the background is our engine today. It’s funny how things come full circle. Imagine Verna’s delight in getting to see her grandfather’s engine running again. Our 75 Case came from just up the road (unbeknownst to us at the time of purchase) and has a legacy all its own through Verna’s photos and memories. The first time we threshed with it on our farm may not have been the first time that engine was even on our farm. We’ve also discovered that our engine was modified early on by a friend of Walter Kelly’s, who sawed off the second pulley that the engine was shipped from the factory with. We are so glad she was able to see it run again.

Probably the same year Hank was loading bundles, Gertie Schladweiler, my husband’s paternal grandmother, came with family to see the events of the day. Tears flowed. Her dear Pa had run the engine on a threshing rig, many, many, years ago. Even though Gertie was suffering from dementia at the time, this she remembered. I asked her about it once. She told me the threshing was the men’s work. She worked in the kitchen, just as my own Mama was busy with at that exact moment. She recalled the huge meals put on for the crews. While the men worked, the women worked to outdo the neighbor women in who could put on the best feast. No matter the type of work they contributed, it didn’t change the light and tears in her eyes remembering the fond memories.

My grandparents all did some threshing in their younger years and they have all been out to the farm loading bundles and bagging up grain. Even though it is a recreational sport for them nowadays, it still makes them smile. My paternal grandmother loaded bundle wagons, just like when she was young on the farm in the hollow. She was into her eighties when we quit threshing. Miles of home video footage show her loading wagons at all ages. I am quite sure she would still be loading them if we were still hosting a threshing day on the farm today, just to say that she did.

Some of the memories are events we attended in days gone by. In the early years, there were more small farmers - and more farmers who had horses. We didn’t have a trailer to haul the horses in those days, so Pa drove our team from our farm out to Schmidt’s farm. That farm was nearly twenty minutes by car, so we’d start out early in the morning, pulling two bundle wagons hooked together. Mama held little me in her lap (I was maybe two at the time), had a bag of snacks, chairs, and her dish to pass all piled on behind Pa. It took a healthy 2 hours and then some to get there with Dude and Rusty, but it was worth it. We threshed off the field with an old oil-pull tractor, hauled bundle wagons with our team and were joined by other farmers and their teams as well. We enjoyed a meal together, then started the long drive home. 

There just aren’t as many threshing bees as there used to be, and shows simply aren’t the same as the real deal. There aren’t nearly as many horses, and usually just a handful of loads to be threshed each day. Those who come to watch miss the effect of the steady flow of wagons to and from the field. A show can’t compare to what it’s like it is to thresh off a whole crop in the field. There’s not the satisfaction in it like there is to look at field clear of shocks on the way out of the drive. 

As Pa would say “the old-timers keep getting younger.” I don’t know anyone who knew anyone old enough to remember the Civil War, but we do have their memories if we are willing to take the time and listen. That is one of my favorite things about threshing. The memories. The things the old-timers remember and the new memories we continue to make year after year, even if the only threshing we do these days are at shows.