How often we’ve heard that over quoted and out-worn click –
‘Children hold a marriage together.’ But how about the
childless couple who have adopted a few gas engines – and the
marriage is still holding?
Testing both theories on the vicissitudes of marital bliss – we
all know of couples differing to the point of splitting, with Momma
taking little Johnnie’s side in a family argument, while Dad
and Mary Jane gang up together and the marriage winds up adrift in
a sea of no return. On the other side of the ledger, there have no
doubt been those blissful though childless couples wherein the good
wife has argued strongly against hubby’s hobby of de-greasing
old and out-dated, but grimy gas engines, taking a dim view of
dirty overalls mingling with white linens and parlor curtains in
the family wash.
But not so with the Zane Prifogles whose only ‘patter of
little feet’ about the family place is the ‘putt-putt of
gas engines’ which this happy two-some decides to adopt into
their family circle. For, let some old, cast-off antique gas engine
catch the eye of Zane, and Alberta’s already open-armed and
agreeable to the adoption proceedings, come each blessed event.
The Zane Prifogle gas engine exhibit as it appeared at the
Rushville, Indiana Pioneer Engineers Club and at Tri- State Gas
Engine & Tractor Show, Indiana. The big Rawleigh Schryer gas
engine occupies the center position on the family trailer, being
their pride and joy. At 350 rpm it develops only 4 horsepower – but
we’ll wager they’re big horses and steady too. And is it
any wonder that Alberta looks up to husband Zane being over six
feet tall, almost seven with that cap high on his noggin,
Alberta’s eyes reaching only up to the third button down on his
shirt. And that gentleman in dark glasses to the left – that’s
‘OF Needle Eye’ as the boys affectionately call him – James
Maloney who is the most expert gas engine modeler in these times.
I’m surprised he doesn’t have his paper and pencil making a
few sketches and taking measurements on the big Rawleigh Schryer
with an eye to making a model of it for next summer’s
shows.
This tractor was bought new in 1938 by Mr. Floyd Anderson of
Sumas, Washington, with the plow. I bought the pair from him last
fall and after ten years of setting in the shed, it took only one
turn of the crank to get the tractor running. How was that for
taking care of a tractor?
I plowed seven acres with this tractor and plow this spring
before we put our oats in. I hope to have the tractor and plow at
the show in Lynden, Washington this year.
This is my Grandpa Ben Van Lant, threshing in the early 30s
around Broten, Minnesota.
It is not our prerogative to argue the pros and cons of family
fecundity in these lines. Such decisions we proffer to the realm of
the Eternal and parental predilection.Ours is only to suggest that
if the good wife shares in the fun and pleasure of her
husband’s hobby – be it collecting old gas engines or what –
there’s little else left that matters. Let the divorce courts
grind on, but that marriage is holding.
‘Alberta is my ‘chief engineer’ – she likes gas
engines as well as 1 do,’ laughs Zane Prifogle. ‘She
won’t stay home when there’s a show to go to. She operates
the gas and choke for me. When I’m away she can turn ’em
off and even starts some, if necessary. But I’m not sure if she
could start the big Rawleigh.’
‘You see, we have no children, except our gas engines,’
chuckles Zane, as happy as if he had ten li’l tow-heads and
curly-locks tugging at his shirt sleeves and pant-legs. The big
Rawleigh Schryer which Alberta lets Zane strong-arm to get started,
weighs 1180 pounds and occupies the dominant position on the
Prifogle mobile trailer exhibit at the engine shows. The huge
engine develops only four horsepower, turning at 350 rpm. But, as
one man said, ‘Some horses are bigger than others,’ and you
can rest assured that this giant, built sometime between 1912 and
1916, packs a double-team of four of the bigger horses, judging
from those giant fly-wheels and the steady chug of its exhaust.
(Let no enterprising up-start get the idea into his noggin that he
could stall it with his four-horsepower lawnmower tractor engine
belted thereto.)
‘Alberta and I restored the Rawleigh,’ says Zane. And
the way Alberta looks so lovingly at the fine, big engine – and
guards it like a watch-dog when Zane is elsewhere on the grounds –
we have a sneakin’ suspicion that she did some of the beautiful
paint work and striping. (The delicate touch of a woman exceeding
in excellence the clumsy hand of man.)
Standing spellbound, alongside Zane and Alberta Prifogle, we
noted that greatest craftsman of all – which the gas engine boys
affectionately call, ‘Ol’ Needle-Eye’ – James Maloney
was observing the precision and beauty of the big Rawleigh Schryer.
Maloney was written up as a Spark Plug of note, several years ago,
as the one-time instrument maker for the Navy who now fabricates
tiny scale models of some of the more interesting gas engines, all
of which function like their prototypes. But we didn’t see him
with pencil and paper, taking measurements as he usually does when
another model is in the offing.
Among the other, smaller gas engines on the Prifogle trailer
exhibit, more or less dwarfed by the big Rawleigh, are a one-horse
Ideal, a Massey Harris one-and-a-half horsepower, and a rare little
half-horse Duro, manufactured in Dayton, Ohio. The latter, though
smallest of the group, packed a mighty wallop of interest among
engine lovers looking for the rare and uncommon in way of
internal-combustion.
‘The big Rawleigh is our pride and joy,’ explains Zane.
‘We found it sitting in a summer kitchen at Whitcomb, Indiana –
about twenty-five miles from where we live near Connersville.
But Alberta Prifogle shares her pride for the big Rawleigh with
pride for hubby, Zane, who towers well over six feet in stature,
almost seven with his engineer’s cap stuck on top. Her eyes
coming to a level of the third button down on his shirt, she really
has to look up to him, which she does.
When the shows are over, and the Prifogles are back home in
Indiana – at route 6, Connersville – their spare time is shared
with the hunting and restoring of more lost and forgotten antique
gas engines, as well as the perusal of the various histories
pertaining thereto.
‘My first engine was the Ottawa Log Saw which my Dad bought
brand new,’ says Zane. ‘It has a four-horse Ottawa Engine
on it.
was the only thing we didn’t junk.
bought it from Dad.’
‘Altogether we have about twenty-six gas engines, all
told,’ sums up Spark Plug Prifogle. ‘Witte, Stover, a
3-horsepower International, an Upright Famous, John Deere, and even
another Ottawa Log Sawing outfit, including the limb saw,
tree-felling attachment which always makes a good show. Had it at
the Jim Whitby Show for three years and Jim thought there was
nothing like it. Then we had it at Rushville for three years and
three years at Tri-State.’
‘For three years we sawed wood,’ says Prifogle.
‘Then we got the big Rawleigh Schryer and it made an even
better show – or at least a collector’s item.’
Zane Prifogle’s love for the old farm gas engines began
when, as a lad, he was raised on the family farm outside of
Connersville, Indiana. For years he helped his Dad cut firewood
with the Ottawa Log Saw his father had bought.
‘The last wood we cut was in ’52,’ reminisces Zane.
‘Dad died three years ago.’
‘There’s lots of history to that log-sawing
business,’ says Prifogle. And he should know.
‘It all originated with a Mr.Warner who was making steel
wire fence by hand. Then, one day, the steel companies came along
and made it by machinery – cheaper and faster – and put him out of
business,’ explains Prifogle. ‘Once, when he was making a
trip by train, a place where they stopped he watched two men cut
down a tree. At the next town he spent days in a hotel and came out
with the idea in his head that was the beginning of the Ottawa Log
Saw.’ (How’s That Fer Sparkin’ The 01′ Plug?)
‘W.L. Warner wound up making a hundred-thousand log-sawing
outfits,’ says Zane. ‘But I ’11 never forget, when Dad
got his Ottawa Log Saw, he wouldn’t have anything to do with
the ‘tree-felling’ attachment. he was afraid the tree might
jump back over the stump and ruin the equipment.’
Prifogle has been collecting old gas engines for nine years now.
He exhibited his first gas engines at Rushville, Indiana,
continuing to show there for nine years, and at Tri-State Show at
Portland, Indiana, for seven.
‘I’ve attended every Tri-State Show except the first one
at Ft. Recovery, Ohio,’ (I’m in the same boat, Zane. My
wife has never forgiven me for not getting to that first Tri-Stater
at ‘the Fort.’)
Then, too, the Prifogles have shown engines at the Darke County
Steam Threshers at Greenville, Ohio, and at the Covered Bridge
Festival and Gas Engine Show at Mathews, Indiana. (The latter is
where our beloved Tri-Stater, the late Walter Baldauf, used to show
his wonderful model of a covered bridge.)
One wonders what might have happened over the years to what
remains of the wonderful old gas engines we still have around (the
steam engines included), had not such as the Zane Prifogles become
interested in restoring and preserving our historic past.
I’ll never forget the time I plied the late Rev. Elmer
Ritzman, editor and publisher as well as originator of these
magazines, with the same question. And he came back with this
poignant reminder, ‘Had these men not saved and restored these
remaining engines, they would have long ago been melted up into
bullets to damn mankind.’
A snapshot of nine John Deere ‘D’ varying in age from
1923 to 1935. At right is a 1923 and 1925 spoke flywheel John Deere
‘D’. Notice difference in size of flywheels. Charles owns
all these models.
A 1923 and 1925 spoke flywheel John Deere ‘D’. Notice
difference in size of flywheels. Charles owns all these models.
One cannot lightly pass over this significant statement, as he
stands respectfully observing the beautiful and majestic Rawleigh
Schryer Gas Engine chugging smoothly and well-balanced on the
center of the Prifogle Travelling Engine Exhibit. Were it not for
such as Zane and Alberta, at best it might remain today only a
rusting heap mired somewhere in the mud back behind a fallen-down
barn, in a basement or deep in some woods – unknown, unglorified
and certainly unable to run. And, worst of all, it could have been
melted into death-dealing ammunition which might have resulted in
snuffing out a few more human lives.
But the old Rawleigh Schryer, restored, beautified and
functioning again brings fun, interest and fascination to the many
hundreds, even thousands that daily pass by at such shows as
Rushville’s Pioneer Engineers Club, or at Tri-State Old Gas
Engine & Tractor Show at Portland, Indiana, each year.
Whether the exhibit happens to be steam or gas engine, the fact
remains that the engine shows offer to the rising generation an
education they otherwise couldn’t obtain, regarding the
mechanical prowess and inventiveness of our eminent forebears. For
it is a tragedy of our times that so many of our young people are
short on the knowledge of our grand and glorious past. The things
that have made America great are so little known and therefore not
appreciated, until they happen to visit a steam or gas engine
association ground. The lack of which has already caused so much of
our past grandeur – fine monuments and buildings, the railroads and
their depots, and the steam and gas engines to be torn down, or
junked and destroyed with nothing remaining. It is often a sad
experience to converse with some of our youth and attempt to
reminisce about the ‘great days’ in our land. The
Bull-Dozer Has Become America’s God!
It is to such as the Prifogles – Zane and Alberta – that this
column is dedicated. And in recognition of their tireless and
selfless efforts we offer an Honorary place in our Hall of Spark
Plug Fame.
And to each and every one of you – the next time you see the
Prifogle Gas Engine Exhibit, stop by and pause a bit, long enough
to look and listen and ask a few questions as a sort of ‘Thank
you, Zane and Alberta, for all you’ve done, lest we
forget.’ GN-73
