Keeping the spirit alive

Aug 28, 2023

-Messenger photo by Hans MadsenDan Hodgson, of Boone, at left, and Don Lamb, of Homer, work on feeding the thresher Saturday afternoon during the West Central Region Cockshutt & Co-Op Club Threshing Bee in Homer.

HOMER — Wayne Lussman’s old hit-and-miss engine isn’t just another old engine pumping water at the West Central Cockshutt and Co-Op Club Threshing Bee.

For Lussman, of Fort Dodge, it’s a piece of his heart.

The machine was his dad’s.

“We lost dad seven years ago,” Lussman said. “This is my way of keeping his spirit alive. I just hope I’m doing him proud. My dad was a good friend. My dad was my best man at my wedding. This is for him.”

The 1 1/2 horsepower engine was sold through Montgomery Ward. It would have set the buyer back $43 back in the day.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Wayne Lussman, of Fort Dodge, works on starting one of his old engines Saturday during the West Central Region Cockshutt & Co-Op Club Threshing Bee in Homer. The 1 1/2 horsepower engine cost $43 new in 1917.

“Forty-three dollars in the mid-teens — that was a lot of money,” he said.

Lussman isn’t sure exactly what year it was made.

“The factory burned down; they lost all the records,” he said.

His father, Willis Lussman, collected Oliver and Hart Parr tractors. He found the engine while making his rounds as a seed corn salesman.

“My dad saw it in a junk pile,” he said. “It was wore out. Dad said it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed.”

-Messenger photo by Hans MadsenJohn Bonner, of Vincent, pours black powder into a log splitter Saturday afternoon during the West Central Region Cockshutt & Co-Op Club Threshing Bee in Homer. The device is driven into the end of the log to be split.

The stationary engines were a fixture on most farms before rural electrification. They were used to pump water, run machinery, charge batteries and grind feed.

“I heard of one guy that hooked a generator up to his to charge a couple of batteries to run his radio at night,” Lussman said.

It’s just a fact of life.

Sometimes antique equipment, like a Wood Brothers Thresher Co. threshing machine, breaks down while you’re trying to use it during the Threshing Bee.

The club members don’t have an implement dealer to call for service on the late 1930s Des Moines-built machine. They fix it themselves.

Don Lamb, who owns the machine, got some help from Dan Hodgson to splice an old leather belt that decided it didn’t want to stay in one piece.

They used an antique fixture to cut the belt, then another antique machine to install the metal splice.

With the belt installed, they fired the machine up. It’s powered by the flywheel on a parked tractor.

“Let’s see what breaks next,” Hodgson joked.

In the past, there was a lot of handwork on the farm.

Tim Berven, of Stanhope, took a turn on the crank of a corn sheller.

“I’d hate to have to do 120 acres worth,” Berven said.

The machine is owned by Don Lamb.

“It’s my corn though,” Berven said. “After the combine goes through, I grab a couple of buckets full and keep it just for this.”

Berven said the shelled corn would usually have been used for animal feed. Larger machines would have been used for corn going to market.

“It takes forever to do a bucketful,” he said.

There’s no real limit on the machinery a visitor to the Threshing Bee might see.

Dan Stevens, of Boone, was spending part of the day zipping around the grounds on a Lennox Grader.

The little machine has metal treads, steers with levers and has a three-foot wide blade on the front. It’s powered by an air-cooled engine similar to a lawn mower. It’s owned by his brother.

“I enjoy it,” Stevens said.

So what sort of practical work can be done with a tiny bulldozer that could probably fit in a car trunk?

“I was pushing hay with it,” he said. “My brother tries pushing snow with it occasionally.”

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