July 26, 1941 (Saturday)
- Jill Johnson Tewsley
- Jul 25, 2021
- 2 min read
OH, SUCH A HOT DAY
Another very hot day.
Orlo helping Simon Wingeier's
thresh oats this P.M.
Threshers came here at
2:30 PM and threshed
the oats in the 7 acre field
280 bus.
Through at 5 o'clock.
Supper for most of men.
Alice helped me but Oh,
such a hot day.
Lowell Hot Points playing
ball at Woodland to-night.
At 99°, July 26, 1941 was the hottest day on record in Grand Rapids that year during the month of July (Climatological Data. Michigan, Volumes 55-56).
That is a hot day for just sitting around. But it is "oh, such a hot day" for threshing oats, making and serving supper to all of the threshers, and playing a game of ball.
Hank and Orlo helped with the oats at Wingeier's farm before coming the Johnson farm with all of the threshers to tackle the "7 acre field." Not all farmers owned their own threshing machines so the threshing crew would make the rounds from one farm to another using the same machine and employing the help of farm hands and farmers from the area.
Edna and her daughter Alice spent the day making food to serve to the men for supper once they completed their work for the day. My dad (Enda's grandson) said there were often 15 or more men on working in the fields on threshing days. On those days, he recalls that his grandmother would start preparing food before the break of dawn.
I am always so excited when Edna notes some sort of statistic or fact. In this case, she wrote that 7 acre field produced 280 bushels of oats. A little research indicates that the average oat crop yield per acre in the United States in 1941 was 31 bushels. My quick math (math is not my best subject) shows that they were averaging 40 bushels an acre. This is better than the national average for the year and the national average of 35 bushels per acre the year prior ('40) and the year after ('42).
I hope Henry and Edna were pleased with the results. I hope the threshers enjoyed the meal Edna and Alice prepared. And, I especially hope Hank and the Lowell Hot Points won their game.
😀