June 16, 1950 is a memorable day for me It was the day my family moved from 96th Ave. to 10007 Port Sheldon Dr. , it was the day I got mumps, and it was the day I celebrated my 10th birthday. The house into which we moved was a big step up because now we had an attached garage, an indoor toilet, AND a bathtub! We also had a new neighbor directly across the street, Dick and Kate Essenburg. To me as a 10-year-old, Kate was a bit frightening because of her size and gruffness, but Dick was a friendly guy who invited my brother and me to play marbles in his basement and watch television which we did not have. Dick had a hand which was deformed but which didn't seem to interfere with getting things done or with his inventiveness. One of the things he built fascinated me. He had transformed an old Model A Ford car into a tractor which we called a Doodlebug. The Wikipedia says about the Doodlebug, "Doodlebugs had many names — Friday Tractors, Scrambolas, Jitterbugs, Field Crawlers, Ruxells and many others, as well as the most common, The DoodleBug, which was a nickname for the aftermarket tractor kit made by David Bradley, "The old DB". Initially, the idea of the homemade tractor came from several catalog and implement companies in the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, such as New Deal,[3] Peru Plow Co., Thrifty Farmer,[4] Sears Roebuck & Co., Montgomery Ward, Pull Ford, and Johnson Mfg. Co. The conversion kits were expensive, some as much as $300, and farmers, hit hard by the Great Depression were a resourceful lot. Magazines like Popular Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated provided instructions for building a "Handy Henry" from that "old Ford sitting in your back yard, using simple tools anyone would have". The cost to build a "Handy Henry" made from an old Model T car or truck was about $20, according to the 1936 edition of the Handy Man's Home Manual, and this provided a serviceable vehicle with rubber tires, a big truck rear end and two transmissions to make up for the gear reduction with which the kits came." I don't know whether Dick's Doodlebug was made with the conversion kit or a "Handy Henry" model, but it did have a big truck rear end and two transmissions to reduce the speed and increase the power to the rear wheels. I was very impressed by Dick's accomplishment and each Spring for the ten years I lived there the Doodlebug dutifully started and tilled the soil in Dick's sizable garden. |
The house closest is Dick Essenburg's house, and the doodlebug was stored outside on the south side of the garage on the right where we couldn't see it. The picture was taken from the sun-porch window of 10007 Port Sheldon Dr. in Borculo. Way in the distance to the right is the farm of Ben Blauwkamp, and just to the left of Dick's house is a corner of John VanderWilk's house. VanderWilk got a television long before we did and we could see it through their window from the same window this picture was taken. I would try to watch their TV with some cheap telescope which turned images upside down! Ben Blauwkamp and Dick Essenburg did invite us to watch TV at their houses occasionally. The black vertical pipe in front of Dick's house held the TV antenna which he could aim from the inside of his house at particular TV station tower.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
January 2024
|