The Huron Expositor, 1994-09-07, Page 5Agriculture
Threshing: past era of local farming
BY DAVID SCOTT
Expositor Staff
It is a bygone era of huge Christ-
mas -style dinners, 12 or 14 -hour
days of rigorous labour, dusty and
dirty working conditions and great
camaraderie. But it is not forgotten.
It's a time fondly remembered by
custom threshing teams like the
ones Tom Kale, Frank Bruxer and
Lou Rowland fortned in this area in
the 1940s and early '50s.
The iluron Expositor recently
spoke to these three former custom
threshers about their experiences in
a time when the number of farms in
the Seaforth to Dublin area was
greater and the size a little smaller
compared to today.
When Tom Kale was 22 he
bought his threshing outfit in 1946
from Vince Lane. Kale had worked
for Lane for the previous five years.
His first tractor was a WK -40 Inter-
national. Kale bought a brand new
Massey -Harris in 1949. It was
billed the "the most powerful trac-
tor on wheels," remembers Lou
Rowland. The thresher was built at
Robert Bell Tractor and Threshing
Company in Seaforth - a 3250 Bell.
Lou Rowland worked with Kale
from 1946-47. Frank Bruxer took
over from Lou the following four
years.When Lou Rowland started
working with Tom Kale in 1946,
the WK -40 tractor had steel wheels
and needed 'road rings' put on it,
remembers Rowland. "The older
tractor we had to put bands around
the lugs to get on the highway,"
said Kale. There was no traction at
all on them, he recalls. "On the
gravel road they weren't too bad
but on the grass they were no
good."
The Route
Kale's custom threshing outfit
worked at over 100 different farms
a year. Most of the farms at that
time were 100 acres or smaller.
Their threshing route was from a
mile and a quarter west of Seaforth
to a mile and 0 quarter cast of
Dublin along Highway 8. They
worked one concession south of the
highway in Hibbert Township and
north of the highway into McKillop
back to the 7th concession, three
sideroads in. The work was pretty
steady from July until December
which covered stook threshing and
barn threshing.
The crops they threshed included
wheat, barley, red clover, timothy
and buckwheat.
DAVID SCOTT PHOTO
CUSTOM THRESHERS - Former custom threshers Tom Kale, Lou Rowland and Frank Bruxer recently
got together to reminisce about the days of threshing in the late 1940s and early '50s.
"It was Christmas every day...the meals were just
out of this world."
"In July or August some farmers
would fill the barn and then they
couldn't get any more sheaves in.
So in the morning when we were
finished stook threshing we'd come
in and maybe thresh three or four
hours. And this would create room
to haul in the remainder of their
crop," said Frank Bruxer. The crew
would then return in the fall to
thresh the rest of the crop.
Just like the Kale outfit, each
custom thresher had their own route
covering the local farm territory.
John Eckert, Manuel Beuerman,
the Ryan brothers, Michael Doyle,
Vince Lane, Frank Nolan, Lou
Devereaux were remembered as
local custom threshers at the time,
among others, by Kale, Bruxcr and
Rowland.
Dusty Work
At each of the farms they
worked at the farmer supplied the,
rest of the crew which usually
totalled about 10-12, including the
two men on the thresher. One par-
ticularly dirty job would be working
in the granary.
Dust conditions in the barn were
sometimes close to unbearable. "Go
in and swallow the dust," was the
expression Toni Kale used. "Who
would you get today to go in?"
asked Lou Rowland. "Sometimes it
was so dirty in the barn you
couldn't see the man beside you,"
said Kale.
"They always put either an older
person or a kid in the granary
thinking that was the easy job but
that was the hardest job you could
do. You never got a break and it
was dirty," said Lou Rowland.
"That grain kept coming down the
spout and if you didn't keep it
away, God help you. There'd be
two or three people coming in the
door screaming at you."
Stook and Barn Threshing
"With stook threshing there was a
lot more pressure. We'd work right'
through meal -time, half the crew
would come in at 8 and the
READY TO WORK - Frank Bruxer, right, worked together with Tom Kale, left, threshing in the Dublin
to Seaforth area from 1948-51. They custom threshed at over 100 farms. Photo taken in Dec., 1951.
St. Columban
by Cecilia Ryan
345-2028
The family of Keith and Rita
Kelly held an open housc for their
parents on Sunday afternoon at the
Knights of Columbus Community
Centre, Stratford.
The bridal party of forty years
ago, namely, Jack Kelly, Jerry
Eckert, Theresa Kelly, Nancy
Stapleton and Marg MacRae were
all present at the open house. Many
relatives and friends from the
surrounding area attended.
Keith and Rita were married at St.
Patrick's Catholic Church, Dublin
on September 4, 1954.
Congratulations, Keith and Rita and
may you have many more happy
years together.
Congratulations to Melanie
Cronin, daughter of Steve and
Nancy Cronin, who was first
runner-up for Queen of the Furrow
at the Huron County Ploughing
IV LC►1 compc,Oliun— --
Lina and Larry Murray, Adrian,
Marissa and Lydia of Brampton
spent the weekend with Agnes
Murray.
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machine didn't stop runnipg," said
Bruxer. In harvest time 'ttreshers
would be running from seven in the
morning until 9:30 at night, said
Kale.
With stook threshing, grain was
tough often times because it wasn't
cured or dried as good, said Bruxer.
A 'set' is where the threshing unit
(tractor and thresher) were placed.
"Some barns weren't suited very
well for threshing," said Bruxer.
"Sometimes you could park the
machine at the end of the barn and
get the straw and the grain in fine
but sometimes you had to park a set
up in the barn. You had the horses
going up the gangway...in a
crowded area. They were in close
to the working parts of the
machine."
"That wasn't as bad as backing
them out," said Rowlands.
"That was always kind of nerve-
wracking," said Kale.
Threshing Meals
"It was Christmas every day,"
said Tom Kale. From farm to farm,
the men ate feasts after a hard day's
work in the field or barn. "The
women were unsung heroes," said
Lou Rowlands. "They took great
pride in feeding the crew," remem-
bers Frank Bruxer.
Take a hypothetical situation
where you were stook threshing
until two in the afternoon and a
sudden shower of rain came up.
"That lady (on that farm) had to
quickly get organized and get sup-
per ready," said Rowland. This was
also at a time when freezers weren't
around and many homes used wood
or coal oil stoves to cook with. On
a hot day, the kitchen itself would
turn into an oven with heat from
the old stoves blazing. Rural elec-
tricity in many local parts didn't
come into being until the early
1950s.
This wasn't a typical soup and
sandwich lunch for a family of
four. There were usually between
12 and 14 hungry men covered
from head to toe in dirt and dust
See MEALS on page 6.
THE HURON EXPOSITOR, Sept.mb•r 7, 1994-3
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