Volume 10 , Issue 30

1956 ('57) - Reliving Harvest With Threshing Machine

Linda, in the OkieLegacy, 2/4/06, Issue 5, Vol. 8, you asked for stories of threshing macines. I am sending this story of when I helped on one. If you want to use it.

Reliving Harvesting With Threshing Machine
In 1956 or in 1957, five Avard, Oklahoma area farmers decided to relive harvesting oats with a threshing machine, me being a young and dumb kid thought it would be fun. I didn't know how much work would be involved. That was the one and only time that I helped harvest that way, (Thank God!). I now know just how tough the farmers were before combines.

The farmers involved were: John Raymer, my dad; Fred Taylor, the owner of the threshing machine; Ed Golbeck: Rufus Boham; and George (Jr.) Boham.

It started on my Dad's farm with my Dad and myself binding the oats with Dad's grain binder. It originally was a horse drawn machine that my Dad converted to be pulled by a tractor, and for that reason it took two to operate it. One person on the tractor and one person on the binder to operate the controls (my place was on the binder, it was kinds fun) and I had 3 levers to operate, I think.

One lever would raise and lower the cutting platform, one to make the binder cut and tie the oats in bundles, and the third lever dumped the bundles into stacks of 6 or 8 (I'm not real sure) off of a fork like platform that the tied bundles fell onto then was dumped onto the ground into little stacks. Just enough bundles to make what they called a "shock." After all the oats was cut, we went back to the little piles and "shocked" them, (the little pyramid shaped piles). I think they had to let the piles dry in the field for some time after they were shocked.

After all the other farmers had all their oats cut and ready, the REAL fun began (NOT!) That is when Fred Taylor pulled that big old threshing machine into our field, my Dad had made a wooden sled to be pulled behind his tractor that I drove and loaded the bundles of oats to be hauled to the threshing machine.

Johnny Golbeck, Ed's son, pulled a wagon or hay rack with his Dad's tractor. Then we would put the loads on each side of the thresher so the bundles could be pitched into the thresher.

At the back on one side was a chute that the thrashed oats would come out of and fall into a wagon or a pick up to haul to a grain bin for storage. I am not sure how many acres of oats each of the five farmers had, but I know it took over a month to get all of the farms harvested. They could have harvested all of the oats with a combine in less than a week, probably." -- Ellis Raymer, Woodward, OK
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