Interest in corn pickers develops into picker and corn crib books

HAMPSHIRE, Ill. — Bob Johnson has several choices when it comes to selecting the corn picker he will take to the Half Century of Progress show.

“It’s a crazy idea, but this year I’m going to take a very unrestored John Deere ground-driven corn picker,” said Johnson, who has 25 corn pickers in his collection. “I’m putting a before sign on it and then I will have the literature that shows what it will look like when they come back to the show and see it restored in two years.”

The picker had a wood elevator.

“The elevator is a pile of parts,” Johnson said. “I have two John Deere ground driven corn pickers. The first year and the third year picker is going to be a lot easier to restore.”

The two Great American pickers in Johnson’s collection are also quite rare. He displayed them at the 2019 Half Century of Progress show.

“I bought this first version of the Great American picker sight unseen from central Iowa,” he said. “It was at an auction and I was told it never picked corn.”

Although Johnson doesn’t know all the details, the 1949 picker has a bad gear box.

“So, I wonder if that’s the reason,” he said.

“What makes this picker different is instead of having gathering chains, it has stalk walkers that are three sets of paddles on either side,” he said.

“These pickers were only made a couple of years and the inventor lived in Tampico,” said his wife, Phyllis. “He lost fingers because of a corn picker accident, so he wanted something safe.”

Great American pickers were made in a factory in Wichita, Kansas, which also made Beechcraft airplanes.

“We have a photograph of a row of these pickers on an assembly line, and if you look behind them, there’s a row of Beechcraft airplanes,” Bob said.

Johnson’s 1950 Great American picker is green and has galvanized metal.

“The elevator is wider that goes into the wagon and they improved the husking bed,” said the collector, who many call “Cornpicker Bob.” “They thought they had a great idea and made it so you can adjust the angle of the husking bed, but it’s a terrible husking bed.”

At the Half Century of Progress show, Johnson will be in the corn picker tent, which is near the corn shelling area. The two books written by Bob and Phyllis will be available – “Corn Pickers and the Inventors Who Dreamed Them Up” and “Corn Cribs: Every Corn Belt Farm Had One.”

“In two years we plan on having a book ready on field corn choppers,” Bob said. “I love chopping corn. It’s one of my favorite jobs.”

His goal is to find a John Deere No. 8 field corn chopper.

“I want one chopper — the one my dad had, but I might end up having two choppers,” he said. “I stumbled across this Papec chopper and I’m thinking about trying to find room on the trailer for it for the show and put a sign on it to promote our next book.”

The Papec chopper was made in the early 1950s.

“The gathering chains that pull the corn in are ground driven,” Bob said. “Everything else is PTO.”

Those attending the four-day show at the Rantoul Aviation Center will find Phyllis sewing in her Sy Vagn, which will be parked near the corn pickers tent.

“Vagn in Swedish means wagon or car and sewing is sy, so it’s a Sy Vagn,” she explained.

Built on a trailer that once hauled corn pickers, the vagn has “all the comforts of the 1930s,” Phyllis said. “There’s an ice box, pot belly stove, Hoosier for our dishware and silverware and we even have a washer and dryer in the bathroom, which is a washboard and clothes line.”

Phyllis sews on a Damascus Grand machine that was built in Belvidere, Illinois.

“It was made by the National Sewing Machine Company and sold by Montgomery Ward in 1923,” she said. “When we take it to shows, sometimes I can say I have the oldest machine at the show unless there are steam engines there.”

The goal for the vagn is for it to look like a black and white photograph.

“I wanted wallpaper and linoleum, but nobody makes them in the colors I wanted, so I painted the floor and wallpaper,” Phyllis said. “Each year I make up a calendar for the wall that matches the current year’s days and this year it is 1954.”

The back porch of the vagn is built where the trailer ramps were.

“I want to find house lights and modify them to be the break lights and signals,” Phyllis said.

Women often tell Phyllis they learned to sew on a treadle sewing machine, much like hers.

“The best thing to get them going is to put oil in every hole of the machine which is like 20 places,” she said. “These machines should be oiled every day they are used.”

The quilt that Phyllis made last year is hanging on the quilt rack in the vagn.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do at Half Century,” she said. “I would love to do a log cabin quilt, but I haven’t found the materials I want to use yet.”

Another project Phyllis plans to do is replicating one of her grandmother’s quilt.

“It was lost in a move and I think it was a double four patch,” she said. “So, I’ve been gathering fabric for that.”