HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe 27th Huron Pioneer Thresher Reunion, 1988-09-07, Page 15THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1988. PAGE A-15.
Threshing exhausting work for women
In the old days, neighbour helped neighbour to get the
harvest in each fall. Above, East Wawanosh farmer Dave
Cook is seen helping Bob Harrison bring in stooks of grain in
about 1910. In 1935, the Harrison bam in the background
was destroyed byfire, set off by a spark from the Silver Creek
Syndicate steam engine threshing inside. Simon Hallahan
got the separator out, but the entire crop was lost. Hugh and
Annie Blair purchased the farm the following year. Photo
courtesy Annie Blair.
BY TOBY RAINEY
Hugh Blair of East Wawanosh, who died
in 1974, will always be remembered as the
very backbone of the old Silver Creek
Threshing Syndicate which annually thresh
ed 40 or more farmers in the district. He was
a shareholder from its early days, moving up
from tank manto separator operator and
finally to engineer and manager of the outfit,
which he purchased outright in 1942, and
which he continued to operate as a custom
thresher until 1966, when the modern
combine made the position almost obsolete.
His widow, Annie, moved to Bly th when
the family farm was sold following Hugh’s
death, where she still lives quietly surround
ed by family and friends. But Mrs. Blair
remembers those heady days of her youth,
remembers the long, exhausting hours and
the back-breaking work on the farm,
especially at harvest time. But she remem
bers something else, too.
* ‘Threshing time was the best time of the
year on the farms,” she said recently, ‘‘It
was a really special time for everybody -
there was always such a feeling of
excitement when that old steam whistle
would blow, saying that your farm was the
next on the list. Those were good times.
‘‘We still often think back to those days;
and I remember one man saying that
(threshing) was the most fun he’d ever had in
his life. There was always such a good feeling
of neighbourliness...the men would always
joke and carry on at the table; it was so
special ....”
The comradeship of the times which
sparked such warm memories more than
madeup for the 14 or 16 hour days which
were a fact of life for the early threshermen,
days filled from dawn until long past dark
with back-breaking labour, and in the early
days of barn threshing, with dirt and dust
and heat enough to choke a man, with no
outdoor breezes to blow any of it away.
Women’s work was different then, but
scarcely easier: most had tobeup at5 a.m. to
prepare tofeed the crews of 12 to 20 men that
came in twice a day at mealtimes while the
farm was being threshed - and sometimes
even for breakfast, if a man on the crew was
from too far away to get home at night.
Several relatives or neighbours would
gather in the kitchens, often made red-hot by
the roaring wood-stoves needed to cook the
mountains of food consumed by the crews;
the work went on all day, never ending until
Continued on page 16
' I -
Annie Blair remembers the part women
played in the threshing.
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