Harvest Scenes: Before the Arrival of the Combined Harvester

This series of images were found by Sharon (Bullock) Rush in a collection of family photographs.  Although they obviously depict various parts of the threshing process associated with harvesting rice and oats before "combines," or self-propelled combined harvesting machines, replaced binders and threshing "separators.  Although the individuals pictures are unknown, Sharon assumes they are various workers of the Rush family farm. [Double click to enlarge.]

Pictured above is a rare recording of the gathering by horse-drawn wagon of the sheaths of grain left to dry in carefully collected "shocks" before being deposited in the great McCormick Deering separator -- long before the coming of the grain "dryer" that cut short the process.  [Collecting the "shocks" left by the binder was a skilled process carefully explained to me by Darrell Gardner during my recent visit to the Bluff.]

Albin Anderson on wagon; Howard Bullock on truck

The separated grain was re-lifted directly into a waiting truck.

And the whole operation relied on the power of a single tractor that powered  a very long belt to the threshing machine by its flywheel.

A marvelous portrait of an unknown harvester atop a mound of collected grain set against a clear sky

The machine pictured above as it is today long retired and on display at the Rush farm on Rush Lane near Crockett's Bluff.

Colored pictures by Ken Shireman

Footnotes 2: Easter 1951?

Top row: Dale Woodiel, Elnora (Bullock) Graves, Sharon (Bullock) Rush, Cread Rush and Shelby Woodiel. Middle row: Bud Anderson, Harold Rush, and Neva (Graves) West. Front row: Unknown boy,  ? Gossom?, Carol Keithley, Ruth Dobson, Unknown boy, and Bobby Lloyd DeBerry

An Easter picture at the entrance to the Baptist Church in 1951.  Although the hats of the ladies reflect the special day, the date is not as certain.  However, since Harold Rush is there in uniform, it is assumed it was when he was home on furlough from the U.S. Army before being sent to Korea where he served in the Army Signal Corp.

Although "Mr. Cread" Rush was our Sunday School teacher and is pictured here, this is obviously not meant necessarily to be a picture of our class.  It appears to be just a casual group shot of those in attendance that Sunday.  The picture below, however, seems to be a picture of just the males of the former group, minus two of the younger boys but including Bobby DeBerry.

L to R: Bud Anderson, Dale Woodiel, Shelby Woodiel, and Harold Rush with Bobby DeBerry in front.

Haunted Musings

I've noted earlier on this site that although the Prange Store that was located a good stone's throw from the Woodiel house, it was the Schwab Store located in what had to be considered the most central site of the activities of Bluff dwellers during the decades immediately following World War II.  While my earliest childhood memories of the Prange establishment are vague, those of the Schwab Store remain vivid.  

Though it has been officially closed since the mid-eighties, it has been remodeled and preserved and continually utilized by Vicki (Schwab) and Darrell Gardner. During my visit there in early March I found it haunted with memories.

As we sat around a long table near a centrally-located authentic pot-belly stove working our way through photo albums filled with historical images of the early days of the store and its proprietors Thelma and Eddie Schwab that included an extensive collection of the picnic gathering commemorating the closing of the store.

Homer Starks and Eddie Schwab

Grace Marrs, Thelma Schwab and ?

DPW Darrell Gardner and Maureen Woodiel Shireman

The well-worn anvil of Sebastian Schwab

Darell Gardner and DPW

Eddie and Thelma in courting days?

DPW and Vickie Schwab Gardner

Vickie Schwab Gardner and her father in the store's peak years.

Picture of the Mary Woods No. 2 in Schwab's Store.

Front Door of Schwab's Store

Footnotes for Bullock-Rush Family Stories

Whether it was, as has often been asserted, an ancient Chinese parable that first suggested "a picture is worth a thousand words" or it was one or another of dozens of other writers of note over the ages that coined the phrase, it matters little.  That the observation is so obviously true is all that matters.  Furthermore, the obvious extension of this statement is, as well: that "every picture tells a story" -- or perhaps stories.


The stories inherent in the following images of members of the Bullock and Rush families are, to some degree, incomplete.  In addition to being fellow farm families and long-time members of the Crockett's Bluff community for most of the twentieth century, there is much we no longer know about their lives and time - that is, those of us putting together this website.  It is our hope the obvious stories that lurk behind these images will emerge from the knowledge and stories of others who might in the future see them. [Note: a double click on a picture will enlarge it.]

What we know about this first picture is it is a harvest (rice?) scene somewhere in the Bluff area about 1913, and we know the young man astride the lead horse pulling this now antique binder is Cread Rush and the seemingly slightly older young man on the binder is his father Ed.  (The dark cloud in the background and the torn white area in the foreground add a certain drama to the scene for me.)  Are the adults in the foreground elders in the Rush family? 

Pictured at the left is Howard Bullock and his perhaps soon bride-to-be wife Jenny V (later Geneva) Purdy who would eventually be the parents of Kathleen, Clyde, Boone, Elnora, and Sharon (who would eventually marry Harold Rush, son of Cread pictured above).


Yes, that is a pistol in Howard's belt!  Clearly this image does not reveal any sign of the fact that, according to his daughter Sharon, one of his greatest loves was dancing.


The picture below, with another Bullock family harvest scene in the background, records the apparent presentation of Roger McCallie to his grandfather by his grandmother and her daughter Elnora.  First grandchild?  First grandson?


Just one more of those threshing scenes of which I'd love more pictures for this site, since the harvest season  -- apart, of course, from early spring -- was the nearest to a truly happy season in the Grand Prairie region of Arkansas in my memory.

From L: Elenora Bullock, with her parents Geneva and Howard and infant grandchild Roger? McCallie

Music has forever been a significant part of any culture, even one as relatively isolated as the Crockett's Bluff of my youth.  In addition to the music of church services of the Baptist and Lutheran churches, and the traditional hits that drifted constantly from early radio, so new to Americans in the early nineteen thirties, there was other music.  After all, electricity was required for the radio, and I can remember the oil lamps at night before the day when the first light bulb, hanging from a twisted cord in the kitchen, was introduced to the Woodiel household.


There was, however, other much more secular and more fundamentally American music of the folk and Grand Ole Opry sort featured at rural and small town dance "halls" over Arkansas during my youth.  Despite the disapproval of the local Baptist churches, they survived.    


The image below is of Clyde Bullock playing the guitar along with an unidentified fiddler about which we'd like to know more.

The final image is of Geneva Bullock feeding her chickens on one of those rare days in winter when it snowed.  Also in the picture is Charlie, pictured pulling Boone Bullock's cart in Hal Prange's memoir published earlier.


I love this image for several reasons, apart from the fat healthy chickens pictured.  It's unusual.  It has snowed enough the leave  measurable amounts, and Geneva (Mrs. Bullock to me) looks happy, as does Charlie.


I love her outfit: rubber boots and apron,  scarf, and warm jacket -- all that was required for such  a wife and mother in her position on a rare day in Crockett's Bluff in the late 1930s or early forties.  And that appears to be a jeep in the background.  Another jeep?  

No doubt, there's much more to say about these pictures and the stories that lie behind them,or the stories they will bring to the mind of viewers.  When those stories become known, we'll add them.  After all, no story ends until the last teller has had his or her say!

I'm indebted to Sharon Bullock Rush for these pictures, some of many she shared with me during a March visit, as well as for much of the information re these pictures. [photo by Ken Shireman]