511 Graff Way Lee’s Summit, Missouri 64063
Delameter’s Old Time Threshing Bee was held north of
Lee’s Summit, Missouri, on August 24 and 25. Talk about a good
host! If you are close by next year, come on in. George and Dorothy
Delameter are as nice a farm host as you’ll find anywhere.
George and Bill Browning’s tractor rest home was the site of
the 2nd annual Old Time Threshing Bee. Our record breaking wet
August almost drowned it out, but it cleared enough to get it
in.
George loves to show you some of his 35 or so collected tractors
and old threshing machines and so the Delameter Threshing Bee was
born last year.
George travels the Grain Belt Nebraska, the Dakotas and Wyoming
servicing and repairing the head house scales in grain elevators
when he is not restoring something old. He is ably assisted by his
neighbor ‘Uncle’ Bill Browning, a retired carpenter/farmer,
in his restoring work.
Between the two of them, they have restored 30 tractors and
associated pieces of farm equipment and have another 30 or so in
the process. Their pride this past winter was the 1920 Titan that
they acquired in full dress rust and stuck up condition, and had
running and in new paint for this show.
An article in the local Examiner by Brent Hoskins
described the threshing bee: ‘With equipment owner George
Delameter seated on the binder and Bill Browning on the tractor,
the work began. They traveled in a large circle around the outside
edge of the 2-acre field. Every few moments several bales of wheat
would pile upon the binder’s catcher and Delameter would pull a
lever, dropping them to the ground. Others followed the machinery
closely, picking up the bales and placing them upright in shocks to
allow them to cure and dry.’ The threshing bee was attended by
members of the Sni-Valley Antique Machinery Association who have a
noble motto: ‘Behold the work of the old… let your heritage
not be lost, but bequeath it as a memory, treasure the blessing.
Gather the lost and the hidden, and preserve it for the
children.’
George and Bill are also very active in the Midwestern Missouri
Tractor Collectors Association at Adrian, Missouri, as well as
anywhere else when someone asks their help.
Thanks for wanting to share our farm heritage, George and Bill.
You are both good showmen and neighbors.