R.R. 3, Box 165 New Castle, Indiana 47362
Regarding the grain binder on page 12, and article number 27/6/5
in the Reflections column, June 1992 GEM: we had that very same
binder. It was an IHC, seven or eight feet. Dad bought this binder
the year I was born, in 1908. I’m not sure if it was made the
year before and might have been a 1907 model. It was painted red.
All wood, and the grain wheel, were painted white. The two truck
heads were green.
My mother predicted that the day after I’d be born they
would thresh our grain. And sure enough, the machine pulled into
our farm after quitting time and I was born, at 6:00 a.m. the next
morning. The neighbor ladies came in the next day and got the
threshing dinner for Mother and helped with the household
chores.
The threshing crew always started early in the morning so the
grain would not have a chance to get dry. Our ring had eight bundle
wagons, six pitchers, three grain wagons, and two roustabouts to
take care of the odd jobs. They had six or eight young boys who
sacked the grain; it would then be carried back to the granaries
and hauled to town the next winter, when work was not so
pressing.
Every morning I had to do the milking by hand, feed and water
all the livestock, before taking them to pasture. I came home from
taking the cows to pasture, changed clothes and walked another 1?
miles to school. I went seven years to a one-room school.
I have lived on this farm since I was born and I was 84 years
old in August of this year. We have sold the farm to Junior, my
oldest boy. I owned it 50 years, my Dad owned it 25 years, and my
grandfather Snyder had it for 28 years.