Old threshing pictures tell tale of harvest

Driving in the Ramsey Creek bottoms the other day, I slowed down to watch the graceful ballet of three Case-IH combines as they performed the dance of "gathering the harvest" in the field below me.

Chaff and dust rose up behind the combines, fully engulfing them as they made a sweeping turn at the end of the row. The men and women in the cab know exactly how far to go before executing their turn so that the beans are fully harvested.

The actions of the three machines seemed to be synchronized, as they moved forward toward the end of the row to make another sweeping turn in three different sections of the field.

It was this visual performance that caused me to open my book of Torbeck family photographs. I knew that within the collection was an old photo of my relatives cutting wheat with a binder in preparation for shocking.

On the same page was a photo of Louis Maske’s threshing rig and crew as they posed for the photographer. The late Verna Rothe identified the farm as the VonBehren farm, one mile south of St. Paul, and the steeple of the St. Paul church in the background confirms this location.

Although the photos were great, I did not know what I was seeing. That is, until I telephoned a local man, Andy Craig. He invited me to scan the images and e-mail them to him so he could get a better idea of what I was attempting to describe to him.

The amount of information that Andy shared with me was phenomenal. To begin with, he told me the three binders were very old because of their six-foot-long wooden scythe blades. Early in the 1900s, the blade size was extended to 10 feet.

He also told me that the four horses or mules hitched to the binder are a typical hitch, and two of the horses in the second team were covered with the more common string blankets. The other animals are protected from insects by regular horse blankets.

These men have paused in their labor for the photographer. In the foreground, Andy counted nine bundles of wheat, and said that the man or boy on the binder would trip a lever and drop the bundles in groups of nine.

A shocking crew would follow behind and six of the bundles would be stood upright with three shocks wrapped around the bottom. The tops would be bent over in such a way so that the wheat would stay dry while the shocks stood in the field. A farmer could expect to harvest a 10-acre field in one day.

My dad often told that his father, Henry Torbeck, who lived one mile south of St. Paul, was known as an expert shocker because he knew exactly how to turn the tops over so they would not break and yet would shed water.

A month or so after the shocked wheat stood in the field, the threshing crew would arrive at the farm and begin the job of threshing the wheat. The threshing machine was stationary during operation, and was set up near the barn.

As for the photo of the threshing machine, Andy told me I was looking at a steam thresher made by the Advance Thresher Company of Battle Creek, Mich. Andy said that this was a very old rig, and there are several hints in the picture that prove this…in addition to the fact that the St. Paul Lutheran Church burned to the ground in 1913.

The presence of the seated man on the feeder platform of the separator places this rig around 1910. Around that year, the feeder was automated and it was no longer necessary for a man to work the trip lever. Under his feet is the feeder platform, onto which the workers pitched the bundles hauled by wagon from the fields.

Andy told me that this particular thresher had a 16-horsepower coal-fired engine. The wagon to the left of the steam engine was probably the coal wagon, and holds a water barrel in addition to several oilcans. A water wagon would also have been a part of this operation.

The 22-inch separator with fold-out slatted straw conveyor was another date setter. In my picture, the conveyor has been folded in the back and tipped in toward the front of the machine.

Standing on the separator, one of the workers has his hand on the barrel-shaped trip counter. This shiny gadget would keep track of every half-bushel put through the separator. From this, the operator of the threshing machine would know what to charge the farmer. Andy said they customarily received so many cents per bushel or half-bushel.

With a $2,500 price tag, several farmers would join together to purchase a machine, such as this Advance threshing machine and separator. My photograph carried the identification of "Louis Maske’s Threshing Rig." In the photo, I think I can make out Henry Lotz (seated on the feeder platform), while two of his sons, Theador and Carl (both with dark hair), stand on the separator.

I was surprised to learn from Andy that four or five threshing outfits covered Fayette County at one time, while I thought it was more of a neighborhood activity. Near Brownstown, Goldsboro had a threshing ring, while Francis, south of Vandalia, owned a rig and traveled from farm to farm.

The host family was responsible for feeding the threshing crew. While the threshing was under way, the womenfolk were kept busy during the morning preparing giant-sized meals to set before the farmers at noon, and then they cleaned and washed the dishes as the men returned to the field.

In talking to Andy Craig, I learned so much about my two photographs. Andy, too, got a treat. He did not have a picture of a Fayette County threshing rig in his extensive collection, but he does now.