A Typical Monday - Many Moons Ago

John Fleming
May/June 1976
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Geigertown, Pennsylvania 19523

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Dear Anna May and Walt Townsend McNabb, Illinois You have a request in Nov. & Dec. GEM for letters from some old timers experiences of yester-years.

The year is in the twenties. I am old enough to remember the activities going on during an average day on a small business place of a wheelwright shop, saw mill, shingle mill, and cider press. My Dad bought everything in 1921 and operated all of this, different parts of the year.

Otis Astle of Oxford, Pennsylvania operating his 20-40 Case with opposed motor. One of the first attempts to convert from steam to gasoline power. Tractor has a steam engine style governor. Seen at Rough & Tumble Reunion, 1975, Kinzers, Pa.

Picture of a device made to fit a Model T Ford car, so it could be used for pulling sulky plow or other farm machinery. On the hub cap it reads [PULL-FORD]. Does anyone have one and who made it? Would like some information on it. I recently bought it up at Cozy Corners, Wisconsin.

Horses and wagons are here unloading logs. The pile is fairly high in June and July. Dad would mark each log as to the way they were to be sawed with the owner's initials.

Now the saw mill was oiled and oil cups of the engine filled in the 15 hp. screen cooled IHC engine batteries connected clutch pulled and gas pumped up in the bowl at the carburetor. Mother, brother, sister and dad are all pulling on the flywheels to start the days work sawing. With several revolutions the engine was running and Dad would engage the clutch on the engine. Then he drove big wooden wedges in back of the engine to tighten the belt.

By dinner time a big pile of lumber was piled along the lane or piled on a waiting wagon and Dad would measure the board feet and charge $10 for sawing 100C feet.

Most all the lumber was sawed at local mills, and planed where finish work required it. Lumber was shipped to Elverson and Birdsboro by steam locomotives, but wherever possible to use their own logs for lumber, local people did.

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