Hutchinson, Kansas 67501
All the old threshermen and enginemen as well as others
interested in old farm machinery and the ways of life and things of
the early days, have lost a friend. ELMO J.
MAHONEY, 70, Dorrance, Kansas, died February 7, 1979 of an
apparent heart attack while driving his car. Friends saw his car
lodge in a snow bank. They rushed to his aid and gave expert
cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It was too late. Born October 29,
1908 at Dorrance, Kansas, he was a lifelong resident of the area.
He married the former Regina Schwartz in September 1932. She
survives him. Other survivors are a son, Garry, of Wichita, Kansas,
two daughters, Mrs. Linda Vopart of Topeka, Kansas and Mrs. Janet
Hopkins of Junction City, Kansas.
It’s hard to know where to start when writing about a man
like Elmo. He spent all his life as a farmer. His father was a
farmer and a pioneer in big-rig custom threshing in the part of
Kansas where wheat fields were big, yields were big and men were
big. Elmo just had to be big in every way and everything he did. It
was a way of life. Big farmer, big politician, big promoter of good
things, big Irishman and big talker.
Elmo was born into a large Western Kansas family. His father,
Tom, and Uncle Ed were early day big steam outfit custom
thresher-men. They used Avery machinery and, of course, the largest
they could buy. Elmo’s father and brother ordered two Avery
undermounted steam traction engines from the original blueprint
built at the time. Ordering two big engines, while you might say
they were still on the drawing board, was a distinction that
occurred to both the Avery Company of Peoria, Illinois and the
Mahoney clan.
The Mahoney ranch was one of the two Avery testing and proving
grounds, both of which were located in Kansas. One testing and
proving ground location was at Averyville, Kansas (later the
Kirborn Ranch near Sterling, Kansas), and the other on the Mahoney
farms in the Bunker Hill and Dorrance, Kansas area. The Mahoneys
invented the famous Mahoney low-down feeder used on the Yellow
Fellow separators in later years. They also helped with the early
changes and improvements on the under mounted traction engines.
They were field consultants for the famous and much sought after
Avery 40-80 Avery gas-kerosene tractor. Later in their operations
they plowed and threshed with the 40-80 Avery tractors. There is
still one in the family.
A great deal of space would be needed to tell about the things
Elmo did in his span of three score and ten years. The things
following would be only a partial list. Agricultural
Leader: President of Russell County Farm Bureau; served on
government sponsored agricultural programs both at state and
national levels; was a trouble-shooter and a much called on speaker
for farm problems and legislation. Farmer: His
basic occupation; he raised certified varities of wheat; was the
Kansas Wheat King of the state in 1938.
Businessman: owner and manufacturer of the
Toss-Back device and the automatic relief basketball goal.
Inventor: the long-life sickle drive used on 18-22
foot harvester combine headers; and the above mentioned famous
basketball and baseball toss-back device. Public
Service: Consultant in the United States Department of
Agriculture during the Kennedy Administration; Kansas state grain
inspector. Political: Kansas Legislature House of
Representatives; candidate for the United States Congress from his
district. Community Leader: Mayor of Dorrance,
Kansas; member of Lions Club; President of the Lake Wilson
Development Association; member of the local school board for
years. Public Speaker: for Farm Bureau and on call
for various governmental farm programs; to promote and discuss
various local community drives, issues and organizations.
Organizer: the first curator and manager for the
National Agricultural Hall of Fame at Bonner Springs, Kansas
(located just west of Kansas City), organized and helped promote
the first Wilson CJECH Festival and Threshing Bee in Wilson,
Kansas. College: graduate of Kansas State
University; a star basketball player; member of National
Association of Basketball Coaches. Pilot: charter
member of the Kansas Flying Farmers and held many offices in the
organization; for many years piloted his own plane to Topeka for
legislative sessions and business and farm affairs. Antique
Buff: owned big Avery steam and gasoline threshing rigs;
collector of Avery catalogs, literature, pictures and memorabilia;
and what seemed like an unlimited source of information from
experiences and memory. Radio & TV: on NBC
Frank Blair’s ‘Today’ program from the Kansas State
Fair during the Kansas Centennial; anchored many farm programs on
the Hutchinson, Salina and Russell, Kansas radio stations.
With all the above activities and accomplishments and many more
he was right at home at the throttle of any Avery undermounted
steam traction engine and it seemed he could make it perform better
than any one else. Never did this writer ever see him change
‘the set’ when he lined up and belted into his big 42′
x 70′ Avery yellow separators.
In 1949 Elmo staged at the ranch west of Dorrance, Kansas the
first Flying-Farmer ‘Fly-in Threshing Bee.’ To the
writer’s knowledge this was the only ‘one-of-a-kind’
threshing bee held any place in the country. He showed folks how
threshing was done with a big 42′ Yellow Fellow separator and
the 30 HP undermounted Avery engine. There were some 27 airplanes
on the ground and in the air around the rig at one time with more
than 700 spectators. Such an occasion one never forgets with
airplanes flying around, airplanes on the ground taxing around a
big steam threshing rig. There was billowing chaff and straw on the
down wind side of the straw pile and a long plume of smoke rolling
out of the undermount’s stack. The air might have had some
noise pollution with airplane motors running and a big double
cylinder steam engine chuffing under the load, but it sure was a
melody of sounds you don’t forget. The accompanying scene gives
a glimpse of the beauty of such an occasion. The popularity of this
demonstration probably gave more impetus to the antique engine and
threshing shows over the country than any other demonstration it
set the pattern.
Elmo took time from his farming enterprises to be the curator
and general manager of the National Agricultural Hall of Fame at
Bonner Springs, Kansas when it first opened in 1965. Through his
vision and many contacts the Ag Hall of Fame was able to accumulate
a wide variety of fine antique and restored machines used in the
early years of agricultural production. Many restorations that are
presently on exhibition there were completed by Elmo.
He was an inventor and thinker. The trait ran in the family. He
knew how a farm machine should work and if it didn’t, he made
it work better with field changes. Many of his field changes were
adapted later into regular production by the manufacturers. One of
his outstanding inventions was the sickle head drive for large
combine headers. This drive was particularly adapted where the crop
was down and damp and matted and loaded with weeds. He invented in
later years and was manufacturing at the time of his death the
famous Toss-back device now used around the world by head baseball
and basketball coaches.
Elmo was a long time subscriber and contributor to the Iron Men
Album. He contributed by lending his support and quoting it as a
bible as he went about with friends and business. Through the years
he wrote many items and supplied pictures about the Avery line.
When the late Rev. Elmer Ritzman started publishing the Iron Men
Album and was selling subscriptions and operating a stand (under
the shade of a big umbrella) at the Antique Engine and Threshers
Show at Wichita, Kansas it was not unusual to see Elmo and Elmer
discussing engines and separators and you could tell it wasn’t
the little ones they were talking about.
Elmo had the right background for an antique buff. He was an
expert and an authority from early experience. He didn’t have
to brag or fantasize, his background was from the real thing. He
was brought up in the early times of large production and
harvesting, particularly with the early history of Avery equipment.
His folks owned and operated them. His father, Tom and uncle Ed
bought two new separators in later years big Averysat the same time
and threshed upwards of 100,000 bushels of grain per year with each
machine. Testimonials in both the 1908 and 1914 Avery General
Catalogs verify the above accomplishment and gives many more
interesting Mahoney accomplishments. We are all dimished by his
demise.
Finally and in conclusion this editorial by R. T. Townley,
editor of the Russell, Kansas Daily News (Senator Bob Dole’s
home town newspaper) gives a closing summation: ‘The sudden
death of Elmo J. Mahoney, after 70 tumultous years, seems almost
out of character. He was a man who one might believe would have
been gored in a bullring; trampled by a herd of charging elephants;
lost on a flight to the Gobi Desert; or wasted by the CIA. Of
course, none of these would or could happen to Elmo. He was first,
last and always a family man, a man of consideration, love and
devotion. But he seemed to live in a tempest, constantly buffetted
by gale winds, drenched with torrential rains, baked with eternal
sunlight and forever at the mercy of Irish spirits who had tested
his ancestors. The Dorrance, Kansas farmer business man politician
idealist thinker was his own creation of sound and fury. Devoted to
principle, he felt strongly about issues of the day. His Irish
temper, quick to rise and just as quick to turn into charm, told
much about this man. It told for example, that he loved
controversy, sided with the underdog against the giant, had a
natural feeling for the pulse of the people and willing to joust,
if necessary, with whatever dragons happened to be standing between
him and his goals.
A threshing demonstration on the Elmo J. Mahoney ranch at
Dorrance, Kansas, with his 30 HP Avery undermounted engine and
42′ x 70′ Avery Yellow Fellow thresher. Threshing certified
seed wheat.
We remember the elated Elmo sharing the discovery that things
were as he had said they would be; looking ahead to a harvest, a
business deal, or the acceptance of an innovation or invention. We
remember too, the forceful speaker who flavored invectiveness with
flattery, who played on emotions with the skill of a concert
organist at the keyboard; a man who was ‘on stage’ for or
against policy or politics; and we remember, too, the plain,
ordinary, everyday man a friend.
Elmo was a doer. He may have moved mountains, although we
don’t know of one which had been displaced. But, one thing is
sure if he wanted to, we had no doubt his ability to do it.
Some think Elmo was more eloquent when his face was an even
Irish red talking about political issues, state government, federal
policy and school districts. We are inclined to agree. But, lest
there are some who remember the Dorrance farmer as all bombast, we
remind them that substance was there and in far greater quantities
than found in many men who claim more more and produce
less.’
