Expensive self-propelled combines with comfortable, air-conditioned cabs replaced the old threshing machines at harvest time decades ago, but those who volunteer at the Northeast Nebraska Threshers’ Association Reunion each Labor Day weekend forsake modern conveniences to help a new generation learn about their agricultural roots.
Threshing grain was once a necessary summer-time tradition on Midwest farms that combined the difficult work with a sense of community farmers felt when neighbors gathered in ripened grain fields to help each other bring in the harvest.
“Some kids grow up today and have no idea what their grandfathers did for their part in American history,” says Kee, 37, who has coordinated the reunion the past eight years. “They lived a plain, basic, and simple lifestyle.”
Through their threshing demonstrations, Kee and reunion volunteers bring the old days of farming back to life, resurrecting a hometown threshing reunion that began in 1956 and was one of Nebraska’s first events honoring old-time agriculture methods.
“They are keeping our past alive,” says Valorie Zach, editor of the weekly Niobrara Tribune. “They maintain an important part of our heritage.”
After friendly prodding from his neighbors, Bill Mayberry first re-enacted old-time threshing 47 years ago with a vintage steam tractor on his farm east of Niobrara. Although that initial demonstration was not publicized, 200 people showed up.
As years passed, horse-drawn threshing, nine steam tractors, and a myriad of other antique farming implements and demonstrations were added. It became the largest threshing reunion in the Midwest, drawing at times 10,000 visitors over a weekend to the Mayberry farm.
The last Mayberry threshing event was held in 1976. When Mayberry passed away in 1983, his old steamers and antique machinery were sold. Kee attended that sale and began to dream of reviving the old threshing reunion, which he and others did in 1995.
“One of the most enjoyable parts of the event is watching horses and horsepower,” says Mayberry’s son, Bill Jr., about the event his father started. “Preparation is one of the most important things.”
He enjoyed helping his father prepare machinery for the annual event weeks in advance. He likes helping Kee and other threshers prepare the modern event too, although the new version begun eight years ago usually draws a more modest crowd of 500 to 700 people.
It’s challenging to maintain equipment and fire up tractors every month or so through the year to make sure their fuel systems are clean and working properly. “I like the hand-crankers (tractors), because you don’t have to worry about batteries,” Kee says. But Kee, who owns a repair shop, jokes that if he didn’t have to work to make a living, he would tinker with antique machinery all day just for fun.
The current threshing reunion includes demonstrations of a horse-drawn corn sheller and grain elevator as well as oats threshing, hay baling, and potato digging with antique tractors. It’s now held on leased land just east of Niobrara and a stone’s throw from the Missouri River.
Kee says threshing and other old-time farming methods are part of Americana that is being lost. “If we don’t revive it now, it will be lost forever,” he adds.
