Friendship and fellowship are big parts of Thresher’s Reunion

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

From Galveston, Texas, to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan — and all points in between.

Gib Thurman doesn’t mind the highway miles spent pounding the pavement for his passion, whether it’s as far south as the Lone Star State or all the way up north of the border in Canada. 

That’s why his stop in Charles City was to the surprise of no one who knows the auctioneer and aficionado of antique tractors and heavy machinery.

Thurman, whose other descriptions include steel guitarist and banjo player, stopped off Highway 14 just outside Charles City and Rockford this Labor Day weekend to attend the 53rd Annual Cedar Valley Engine Club Thresher’s Reunion.

Let’s just say this is how the Butler, Missouri, heavy equipment operator likes to have a good time.

“Iowa’s kind of like a second home to us,” said Thurman, who lives about 50 miles south of Kansas City and drove six hours to attend the antique power show.

Thurman says he hits about 30 shows a year and this is the first time he’s attended the Thresher’s Reunion in Floyd County. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been to Charles City before. He’s driven up to northeast Iowa in recent years to purchase a 36–inch Aultman–Taylor separator here in Charles City – which was home to Hart–Paar/Oliver, one of the first successful mass–production tractor manufacturers in the world.

“They said give Charles City a try and come on up,” said Thurman. “We just came up to lend a helping hand and have fun.”

A couple thousand people attend the three–day gathering that features historic tractors and relics from the past that come to life again. A blacksmith forging medal, a sawmill in operation or a peak into an early 1900s schoolhouse are a just some of the attractions that draw people from all parts of the United States to share in their love of a long ago time.

It’s a museum to come to life. And that’s just the way threshers like it.

“The sound, the smells, the feelings — it’s all part of it,” said Travis Wibben, a member of the Cedar Valley Engine Club that will attend about 10 steam engine shows a year.

Attendees didn’t seem to mind the early morning showers that made the grounds muddy and canceled Saturday morning’s tractor pull.

The camaraderie more than made up for it.

“That’s why we’ll drive 12 hours for shows — just for the hospitality that everybody shows and the shenanigans that we come up with,” said Thurman.

Those shenanigans can come in the form of spark shows – where an engine’s firebox is filled with sawdust to light up the nighttime sky.

Draw–bar horsepower tests are not uncommon.

“We just kind of push our engines to the max, and of course there’s always a little bit of off–side betting going on on who can pull the most horses out of what engine,” Thurman added.

For Jerry Holmes and his wife, Doris, it’s a matter of tradition to travel to Charles City from their normal stomping grounds of Clarion. Jerry has made the trek to Floyd County for about 30 years.

He was “pulling the ashes” from his half–scale model of a 65–horsepower Cass steam engine mid–afternoon. That entails cleaning the ash from the firebox that helps propel the steam engine. The ashes need to be cleaned underneath the grates or they will become warped.

He described the show that he loves to attend every year.

“Terrific. Great bunch of people. Great show. It’s our family vacation,” said Jerry.

Jerry retired from farming about 400 acres just this year. He makes sure to let his twin daughters, Katie and Kelli, have their fun, too, at the reunion. Katie was helping out with Jim Evans’ sawmill, where Thurman was running the little buzz saw. Kelli helped her mother hand out fry bread, which she also cooks at other shows her family attends.

Kelli and Doris didn’t quite take a liking to the shows as much as Jerry did, so they came up with a plan. They both like to bake and cook so Jerry built them a little building with a roof over it.

“That’s how we started entertaining ourselves at power shows is with our humble little shack,” said Doris, who said she was going to wear her period–piece dress on Sunday. 

The fry bread is free, but a donation is always gladly accepted.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the “new” Hart-Paar’s — tractors first built in 1918. The old ones were oil-cooled and heavier.

“This was their introduction into the water-cooled lightweight tractor arena,” said Kelly Barnett, who has been past president of the Cedar Valley Engine Club.

This year’s show was also the 70th anniversary of the fleetline tractors created by Hart-Paar in 1948.

Barnett said that four of the “new” Hart-Paar’s were all at the show on Saturday. There are fewer than 10 known to run in the world.

“It would be the biggest gathering of new Hart-Paar’s in one spot,” said Barnett, from Plainfield. “Probably since they came out of the factory.”

It’s not just seeing the tractors and machinery up close and personal that drives Kelly’s brother, Dana. They have both been coming to the reunion since the 1970s.

“It’s the stories behind each tractor — where it came from, what it was used for,” said Dana.

Unlike looking at old pictures, there’s always that chance to touch, feel or even drive the antiques.

“It makes a huge difference,” said Kelly.

Going on at the same time as the Thresher’s Reunion in Floyd County is one of the nation’s biggest get togethers of old-time tractors in Mount Pleasant, over three hours away in southeast Iowa. More than 40,000 people attend that 5-day event which is called the Midwest Old Thresher’s Reunion.

Thurman has been to it once.

“These smaller shows, we have a lot more fun with just because of the hospitality and the gratitude that’s shown toward us,” Thurman said.

What’s the common thread with thresher’s reunions?

“To have fun,” Thurman laughed.