McLEAN COUNTY HISTORY & GENEALOGY NEWS
By Euleen Rickard
As the wheat turned golden and left the fields with little fanfare this year, my thoughts turned to the days when wheat threshings were a community event. Memories of the wheat threshings that I spent with the Dick and Callie Bowman family on the farm west of Island are vivid today. My grandparents lived in Buttonsberry not far from the Bowmans. I recall sitting on the porch and hearing the shrill toot of the whistle that alerted the neighborhood long before the big engine with smoke and steam belching from its stacks came into view. We ran to the curve of the road and waited for its arrival. The Bowman’s daughter Addie was my friend so I was invited to attend the big day. Folks came from Island, the “Creek” and the Basin and Ridge areas.
Gates Bowman, the youngest son recalled those days as, “hard work but party time.” He said, “When I heard the toot of the whistle I ran as fast as I could to meet it and the owner, Mr.Guy Hoagland, would let me ride in to the farm and even allowed me to toot the whistle. It was a thrill to ride along and blow that whistle.”
Much of the work was done when the wheat was cut. The binder pulled by a team of horses or mules was a piece of machinery that cut, bundled and tied the grain with a grass string, then the men and boys stacked the bundles into shocks and it was allowed to dry until thrashing day came. Farmers with smaller crops hauled their wheat to the Bowman farm to be thrashed; the Billy Baker farm, the M.H. Neal farm, the Nall farm, the Markwell farm, Shutt farm and the Dr. Brown farm, all brought their wheat to the Bowmans to be thrashed. This avoided moving the heavy engine and thrashing machine.
Gates remembered he and his friends would sleep out nights on the big pile of straw that was left and that the ladies looked forward to filling their “straw ticks” with fresh new straw. Many in that era had straw mattresses called “straw ticks.”
Preparing food for the monstrous crowd involved in the work of the threshing was left to the women. At the Bowmans a sheep was slaughtered and prepared, a couple of hams boiled for hours in a large iron kettle over an outside fire and fried chicken, along with bowls and bowls of vegetables, salads and desserts were prepared. Big blocks of ice were brought and put in a barrel of water for drinking.
Tables outside under shade trees were made of planks put on “saw horses” and covered with sheets. Addie and I, along with the other youngsters would carry food out of the kitchen to the tables and fan away the flies. The men ate first, then the women and children. In those days there were no paper plates and as the meal progressed many dishes had to be washed with someone always washing and drying until the meal was over.
Around 1920 Ewell Rex owned a steam engine and served the farms around Island. He died in 1924 and was buried in the Station Baptist cemetery. Then Elihu Hoagland took over from him and his son Guy Hoagland followed him in the threshing business. Guy’s son Emory Hoagland remembers going with his father. He said they threshed for farmers in the Sacramento and Island communities. Other owners of steam engines were Bob Rickard and Carl Donohoo. Mr. Donohoo threshed wheat in several communities.
Some had a lifetime interest in the old engines. In our files at the museum there are several articles from the Iron Men Album and The Heritage Eagle, both magazines are “for steam, gas, tractor, railroad, locomotive and farm machinery enthusiasts.” They have accounts of McLean Countians Stewart W. Lee, Elza Lee “Dodge” Taylor and Vaden Troutman and their interest in the old engines. That is another story, another time.