A Minnesota Family's History with Steam Engines

My sister Kathy and her friend Lynn Lanners worked long and hard to print out some beautiful cookbooks. They worked on this right up to the last minute, also. The cookbooks were dedicated to our mom, Evy, the unsung hero of all those past years. How she did all that work through all those threshing events, we will never know. We sold the cookbooks along with some commemorative T-shirts to offset some of the costs.

I find that the large shows are great. You get to see some rare and beautiful iron, some beautiful demonstrations and some wonderful entertainment. However, the small operations give some people a chance to get involved that normally would not. We used my handicap van to bring some of the seniors from the local nursing home to the threshing site. Seeing the smiles on their faces, seeing the smiles on the faces of the young children as they played in the straw pile when we were done, made it all worth while to me.

I can no longer get my hands on the throttle. I do not hear the roar of the fire when the fire door is open. I cannot climb up and pump the oil can that my father used. Nevertheless, I have learned a new and better way to enjoy the sights and sounds of live steam. And that would be sharing it with others. My nephews now know it's not just running a steam engine, it's providing a window into the past. It is a window for those that were there to remember and a window for those that were not, a chance to understand. IMA