How Do I Run The Darn Thing?

By Joe Park
Published on July 1, 1990

Route 1, Box 54, Princeton, Wisconsin 54968

One can almost hear a prospective thresherman saying, ‘Now
that I own it, how do I run the darn thing?’ Not all who
purchased threshing machinery were this naive. In fact, many were
very sophisticated mechanics and engineers. A large number of these
learned at the knee, so to speak, of a neighbor, uncle, brother or
father. A few were out on their own while still in their teens.

Jim Rabas Sr. purchased his first 75 HP Minneapolis engine and
separator when only 17 years of age1. Ernest Danielson
reported, ‘I started threshing when I was sixteen years of age.
It was hard for Dad to get help, so Dad put me to hauling water for
the steam engine. I hauled water for two years, then Dad put me to
running the engine.2 Likewise Victor Gallagher learned
from his father. He claimed to have always been a threshing and
steam enthusiast. ‘I started by helping my father, Frank
Gallagher, run his 32 x 56 Huber Superior separator and 20 HP
double cylinder Reeves (1919) when I was about 15 or 16 years
old.’3 Orville Hendricks began firing a
Keck-Gonnerman engine when only eight, which prompted his mother to
remark that he cut his teeth on the draw bar. About the same time
he tended the blower. Soon he was elevated to water boy, a job that
he recalled nearly killed him. One day the regular engineer did not
show up for work and Orville took over although he was only
fourteen. He admitted, ‘I had to lie a little bit, but I got a
steam operator’s license when I was
seventeen.’4

In a recent letter, John Steinkuhl of Evansville, Indiana
related how he learned to operate a steam engine. ‘Better than
a book or pamphlet is directly working with the engineer. We three
Steinkuhl brothers, George, Pat and John, were mechanically
inclined. North of Darmstadt and Evansville, Indiana and in Gibson
County, at the age of 17 years, Joe Broerman had me start hauling
water. I helped with the engine and at times Broerman let me run it
with his supervision during the whole threshing season. This is how
I pretty well learned the procedure. Afterwards my brother George
bought an 18 HP Keck-Gonnerman from Charles Bossee. By this time I
knew enough about running the engine, and shredded corn at
Elberfeld.’5

There were those who possessed insufficient knowledge to manage
the machinery they had purchased, and they did not have someone at
hand to teach them. Into this category fell those who had been
enamored by the sight, sound and fury of the threshing scene, and
who as a consequence became easy targets for accomplished salesmen.
Perhaps it happened at a county fair where the beauty of the beast
and the thought of the prestige of ownership overwhelmed otherwise
sensible persons. Some of these men wound up with a new or used
rig, probably a mortgage on their real property and a series of
notes running as long as three years at six percent interest, or
more. Only after their name was on the dotted line did many realize
that they did not know how to run a steam engine or a grain
separator.

There were several sources of help. By using a combination of
these there was no reason why one could not become a successful
thresherman.

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