Helston, Manitoba, Canada
We seldom see anything in your magazine from Canada, so this
being our Centennial year, I thought it might be fitting to
contribute a bit about our Agricultural Museum of Manitoba and our
four day Threshermen’s Reunion.
Quite a number of Canadians receive the ALBUM and quite a number
them very much.
There is only one Agricultural Museum in Manitoba and it is
situated at Austin, Manitoba on the Trans-Canada Highway west of
Winnipeg and it is here we run a Reunion each year on the last four
days preceding the first Monday in August.
This year will be our 14th reunion and each year seems to get
bigger. The first two days for the past five years, we have held a
gymkhana and Rodeo in connection with the reunion. The parade is
the highlight of each day with at least 40 units including steam
and gas taking part.
A good friend of mine takes your Steam Threshers Magazine, and
he has been giving it to me to read, after he finishes reading it,
which I gratefully enjoy reading and looking at the Pictures.
Nothing thrilled me more when I was a kid at home on my
father’s farm then when the Steam threshing outfit pulled in
our yard in the Fall and pulled it between the grain stacks around
the 1900 years.
I always liked to run machinery, so when I was on my won about
the time the gas tractors come out, I got my first gas tractor in
1918 an 8-16 (Avery) and traded it off in 1919 and got a 3 wheel
12-24 (Happy Farmer). Then I got a 24 inch Peerless or (Emerson
Brantingham) separator and later got a 28 inch size machines and
did a lot of custom work till about 1955 when the combines came,
then I sold my larger machine and bought this small old (Woods
Brothers) for my own use.
I usually have 15-18 acres of oats and cut and thresh 4-5 acres
as I blow straw in my barn where it is handy for bedding.
I am sending this picture mainly that my friend John Vander Mass
of Muscatine, Iowa will be surprised to see his Picture as he is
pitching into the machine, as he wanted to come out and see me
thresh.
He really enjoyed it, I am not telling him about this, till he
sees his picture in the next issue.
This (21 inch) Woods Brothers Separator is the one that was made
for the first Fordson tractors.
I will be 80 years old in July. I still farm my 127 acre
Farm.
Our Museum grounds cover more than 160 acres now and with more
buildings include a school house which getting to be quite a show
place. These building include a school house which is bulging with
small museum items; a large steel building donated by the Manitoba
Government which houses larger articles as cars and etc.; a new
five roomed house with full basement which is a home for the
curator and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. John Powers and a large pole
shed with additions to either side to house large engines and etc.
There is another steel building, size 70 x 120 feet, which is being
constructed as a Centennial Project and it should be finished by
June and will be for display purposes.
If we move a little to the North, where all the activity takes
place during the four July days we see a large grandstand which
seats around 3500 spectators. Among the other buildings are two
long dining rooms where full course meals are served, also numerous
booths which cater to the large crowds each year. Isn’t is
wonderful that such a museum exists to preserve the past for the
future?
1967 is Canada’s 100th Birthday, our Centennial year. Of
course we can go back in history a lot further than that to 1497
when Cabot landed at Newfoundland.
The drawing is our Centennial Sign, made up of eleven triangles
in the shape of a maple leaf, representing our ten provinces of
Canada and the extra triangle is for Northwest Territories, which
is not a province and is north of Canada.
