The writer of this letter asked that his name not be used.
As steam engines and men that knew them, I would like to take
this day and time to tell you and all the men and women that are
interested in the old steam engine threshing days of a few years
back.
When I was a very young fellow still in my teens in the
steam man on the circuit for I know him to be one of the best to
work on engines, such as putting in new main bearings. He could
hear a wrong valve a mile away. Flues were a cinch. I never knew of
him having to put in a flue on the account of firing.
There was nothing ever very exciting happening around his outfit
on the account of the engine or the separator for he saw they were
well oiled. He was the engineer on both.
You could look at this man and it would just tell you he knew
engines and he did. I learned under this man. Of course, where my
brain should have been was just muddy water. But he never lost
patience with a young fellow wanting to learn a steam engine. So
after several years I got to where I could start and stop one. But
this man has crossed over the river. The old grim reaper, Cancer,
got him. And Mr. and Mrs. !! he come right out of the heart of
Daniel Boone’s Country, down in old Kentucky. He did not cross
over to the other side before he found a son on a steam engine
wanting to know what it was. So his dad told him what it was and
what it could do, what you could try, what you should not try, and
to be sure to keep it well oiled and greased, and always listen to
what the other man has to say about a steam engine. He was just
that way. So I know where ever the dad is, if there’s a steam
engine around, he is pretty close by. And I think sometimes he
might have his hand on the son’s shoulder. The son is Charles
G. Barker, Lexington, Kentucky, Route 7. I know a lot of you people
know him.
