Threshing in the Valley 2022 Edition Puts Old Iron to Work

Crawford County, Wisconsin community continues nearly 50-year tradition.

By Larry Scheckel
Updated on May 16, 2023
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courtesy Larry Scheckel
A 1941 Farmall H tractor pulls the 1936 McCormick-Deering grain binder.

Farmers have come a long way from the time of the flail and the threshing floor, but the goal has never changed: Separate the oats grain from its stalk. Threshing day on Labor Day, September 5, 2022, brought back a lot of memories from my youth in the 1940s and ’50s on the 238-acre Scheckel farm outside of Seneca, in the heart of Crawford County, Wisconsin.

Fortunately, there is a place to relive those youthful days. It’s on the Monsignor Michael Gorman farm off Highway 171 between Boaz and Rolling Ground, on the western side of Richland County. The 250-acre farm has been in the Gorman family since 1857, handed down through generations of Irish immigrants. It’s located in the Driftless Area, among God’s most beautiful creations.

A farmer at heart

Monsignor Michael Gorman has been pastor of St. Charles Borromeo’s Church in Chippewa Falls and St. Peter the Apostle Church in Tilden since 2016. Born in Richland Center and raised on the family farm, Monsignor Gorman attended Akan Central Grade School, high school at Richland Center, then St. Francis de Sales College Seminary in Milwaukee and St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was ordained a Catholic priest in May 1980. He began his priestly duties as associate pastor at St. John the Baptist in Marshfield, then Blessed Sacrament in La Crosse. He studied Canon Law in Rome from 1984-1986.

Monsignor Gorman has held several pivotal posts in the Diocese of La Crosse: Bishop’s secretary, master of ceremonies, director of Catholic Cemeteries, chancellor, moderator of the Curia, director of the Office of Sacred Worship, parochial administrator of St. Leo Parish in West Salem and St. Mary Parish in Bangor, pastor of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Viroqua, Latin instructor at Aquinas High School, rector of St. Joseph the Workman Cathedral in La Crosse, moderator of the Curia a second time, and vicar general.

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