Threshing machines, steam engines and tractors

by Nick Tullius

          It happened on very quiet day, in the summer, just a few years before the war. The whole village sat there in a deep sleep; not a branch or even a leaf on a tree was moving. Suddenly there was a very unusual noise coming from the cross-street: tsh-tsh-tsh…  One could imagine that a dragon out of the fairytales was coming down the street. Those neighbours that had stayed home from the fields, mostly children and old people, all came out on the street, to see what beast came crawling around the corner.

          What appeared was the so-called "Soziale" threshing ensemble: in front, a powerful steam engine - called a steam boiler by some people - that pulled the threshing machine and the elevator behind it. Our Dinjer neighbours had opened their main gate, and the threshing team first pushed the elevator all the way to the backyard. Then they placed the threshing machine next to the large wheat stack. Finally the steam engine moved in the front yard, next to the summer kitchen.  A very long belt was placed from the large wheel on the side of the steam engine, to a small wheel on the threshing machine. The elevator was placed at an angle to the threshing machine, so that the new straw would fall on top of the old stack of straw.

The next day, we children watched the threshing machine in operation. In the front yard, the mechanic fed the steam boiler with huge quantities of straw, to produce steam. On the wheat stack, two men with large forks passed the sheaves to a third man, who was standing next to the 'inserter' and cut the binding of every sheave with a knife. The 'inserter' appeared to be the most important person, as he stood there on top of the threshing machine, wearing big glasses. He pulled every sheaf apart and then inserted it into the big rotating drum. The threshing machine made a very loud uuuu-UM sound every time a sheave went into the drum.    

          The chaff was blown out from the side of the threshing machine, and was moved to the chaff pile by women with special forks. There was always a lot of dust around that operation, so that the chaff workers were black like Africans.

On the straw stack, two or three people with forks piled up the straw as it fell down from the elevator. Sometimes a man and a woman worked together on the straw stack. It is said that once the two disappeared in the mass of straw for a rather long time. A rumour then spread through the village that they carried it too far on the straw stack. It was incredible how fast such a rumour could spread throughout the village. The phenomenon was called "the village radio" and it was anything but fun for those affected.

Then there was the 'sack man', who attached the burlap sacks to the threshing machine, to capture the wheat kernels. He placed the full sacks on the scale. Sometimes he added some wheat, or took some out, so that each sack weighed exactly a 'Zentner', which is fifty kilograms. For each bag, he made a chalk mark on the back of the threshing machine. From these marks he also calculated the sacks of wheat to be put aside as compensation for the threshing team.       

At twelve o'clock the mechanic let out a blast from the whistle of the steam engine, which could be heard throughout the village. The threshing team stopped working to take its lunch break. The men and women sat down in whatever shade they could find, unpacked their lunches, and ate them while drinking a lot of water. I ran home quickly and asked for a piece of buttered bread. With it I went back to the threshing machine and joined the workers in the shade, to eat my buttered bread. Vetter Franz, who was remotely related to our family, handed me a piece of his bacon and it tasted better than ever before. Actually, at home I rarely touched bacon in those childhood days.

That was my first experience with the threshing machine. Several years later, my father worked as 'sack man' with another threshing company. Sometimes my mother and I brought him his lunch. I was a little disappointed that the big and bold steam engine had been replaced by a rather small tractor. On the front of the tractor, one could read the name of its manufacturer: International. In the middle of the tractor, just in front of its driver, hung a small glass in which one could see the pink gasoline. The tractor was much smaller than the steam engine, but the mechanic said that it had many more "horsepower". They had to carry the fuel for the tractor in a large metal container placed in a carriage, because they had to fill gasoline into the tractor before it stopped running. That was certainly much easier than continuously feeding the steam engine with straw. It was really too bad that the tractor had no whistle and the mechanic had to just stop it for the twelve o'clock lunch break.

Also around this time, the sheaf binders or combines, were introduced. The traditional bindings made of rye straw and needing lots of backbreaking labour, were no longer needed, because the machine bound the sheaves neatly with Manila twine. Then, several farmers acquired tractors, and some of those had diesel engines, because their fuel was cheaper than gasoline. You could see tractors made by Deutz Diesel, Lanz Buldog and Hanomag. A cute little tractor was the Zettlmayr; with its light green color, the villagers soon called it the "Tree Frog".

          In the summer of 1944, the war had come to our village, the threshing was interrupted, and some people were left with the wheat stack in their backyard, until next summer. Next year, there was an abundance of mice and wild hamsters everywhere, such as nobody had ever seen before. When the threshing was resumed in the yard of the Lenhards, a number of us boys were there to observe the activities. When we saw the mice running away en masse from the wheat stack, we caught a lot of them and threw them on the large drive belt, in front of the tractor's drive wheel. They fell out on the other side, compressed like cardboard. We had great fun for a while, until the mechanic chased us away.       

And then suddenly the war came to an end for us. Our young people had already been deported to forced labour, and threshing machines, tractors, and even horses and carriages were expropriated, so that Swabian people were left with nothing.

Many years have passed since then, and today we can catch a large jet aircraft in every major city, and fly halfway around the world. But some of us will always remember:  it all began with the steam engine!

 N. Tullius 2009.10.07

The original version of this article was written in the “schwowische” dialect of Alexanderhausen and published in the biweekly newspaper “Banater Post”, Nr.23-24, of December 10, 2010. The English translation was done by the author. Nick Tullius 2011.01.14     

Original schwowisch text