Box 86-B. Marietta, Minnesota 56257
In the 1920s the folks brought home, from town, a new washing
machine. It had a wood stave tub, with four staves longer, which
were its legs on it.
I remember the name of it well, it was a ‘Dexter’
washer, with a push-pull handle to operate the dasher. In the
machine, the dasher was made of wood. It also had a sort of
flywheel down on the side to help to keep up the motion on the
dasher.
Being the youngest of three brothers, it was for me to operate
the washing machine.
After the drudgery of working this machine by hand every week, I
got the idea of driving the 1917 Ford touring car up to the house,
and putting a pulley on the hind wheel and jacking it up to run the
washing machine. Everything was fine till the car vibrated off the
jack. Then it was goodbye Model T to across the yard to and
gone.
If I could only drive the one cylinder 1 HP Associated engine
from the barn to the house for the washing machine.
Then after 70 years, the dream came true.
I made this John Deere model E 1 HP tractor (picture of it
sitting in the back of my pickup). It has a three speed
transmission and reverse, 14 inch rear wheels and old car tires.
The hood is from a John Deere two cylinder L.U.C. off an old John
Deere 12-A combine engine. I can drive this up to the house to
power the washing machine.
Then back to being a kid of about 12 years old in the 1920s
firing up that old Associated engine. It had four dry cells and a
low tension coil for ignition, open crank shaft and an ignitor
instead of a spark plug
