Lifetime in Steam

By Gerry Lestz
Published on January 1, 1984
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T.M. Throndson with Ed Kroulik in 1959 on an 80 HP Case.
T.M. Throndson with Ed Kroulik in 1959 on an 80 HP Case.
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Threshing day on the Throndson farm with three young engineers, left to right, Doug Collins, Jan Throndson and Dana Throndson in 1959.
Threshing day on the Throndson farm with three young engineers, left to right, Doug Collins, Jan Throndson and Dana Throndson in 1959.
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22 HP Avery engine, 8-bottom Avery plow run by T.M. Throndson in Callender, Iowa, in 1910.
22 HP Avery engine, 8-bottom Avery plow run by T.M. Throndson in Callender, Iowa, in 1910.

Thorvald M. Throndson, of Eaton, Colorado, may be Iron-Men Album‘s oldest subscriber, at age 99. We know it’s risky to make a flat statement, but if anyone of the IMA family is older, we’re sure he’ll be just as interested to know it as we are.

His son, Don E. Throndson, a dental surgeon who wrote to us, is very proud of his dad. “I can’t believe,” Dr. Throndson says, “that there is another man who knows more about threshing than he does. I’d think that he has forgotten more than most people would know about the subject.”

T.M. graduated from Highland Park College in 1910 at Des Moines, Iowa, in steam engineering. In his class of 80 men he was the only one to get 100 percent on his steam engine model. He recalls that only about 30 of the models would run.

Most of his life he ran at least two steam threshers and at times owned three. His father, before him, ran threshers, on back to the days of horses. He has had experience with many engines and separators – Case, Avery, Minneapolis, Red River, Rumely and more. He keeps up with what is going on through IMA, as well other publications.

Airplanes fascinate him too. He took flying lessons in Long Beach, California. For his 98th birthday Dr. Throndson and his sister got him an hour’s time in the air, just T.M. and the pilot in a 170 Cessna. He flew the plane part of the time at the insistence of the pilot.

T.M.’s father and mother, Ole and Austrid, came from Norway. Ole came over first in a sailing ship that took 30 days, two years after the Civil War. Ole was a boy of 17, part of a family group. A few years later he went back on a steamship for Austrid and they returned on a steamer.

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