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Old trades find new life at Old Threshers
Blacksmiths and carpenters at the 75th Midwest Old Threshers Reunion pass down fading skills to eager apprentices
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
MT. PLEASANT — The clang of hammer on iron mixed with the rasp of saw on wood filled the air this week at the Log Village during the 75th Midwest Old Threshers Reunion. With intentional apprenticeships and passionate leaders, the trades on display promise to transport visitors to the past for many years to come.
In the blacksmith shop, fires glowed as metal bent beneath steady hands. Across the path in the woodworking shop, treadles pumped and sawdust hung in the air. Together, the trades told a story of keeping old skills alive and passing them to the next generation.
“I’m not the best, but I get it,” said Linda Vacek of New London, standing over the anvil with hammer in hand. “It’s not rocket science. You just try to do it and then watch, and then sometimes you see something and think, oh, it could be this.”
Vacek first came to Old Threshers years ago to volunteer as her daughter helped in the one-room schoolhouse. At that time, she served in the kitchen, but one year, she said, they placed her in blacksmithing.
“I really wanted to be in woodworking originally, but then I realized this is where I want to be,” she said, shaping a ring from iron over an open flame.
She stayed in the blacksmith shop and found a craft that gave her both challenge and camaraderie.
“You make a lot of connections and friendships here,” she said. “People come from everywhere and some of them you only see once a year at the Reunion.”
Veteran blacksmith Allen Ortery of Decatur, Illinois, said blacksmithing is often misunderstood, reduced in popular imagination to shoeing horses or medieval swords.
“We make hardware for your house,” he said, pointing to hinges, latches and tools that once were as necessary as running water.
Ortery has spent decades teaching the basics: hammer control, safety, math and patience.
“When I first started in the early ’80s, all you had were books,” he said. “Most of those books told you it’s possible, but no clue on how to get there. Now every state’s got its own blacksmithing group. And the internet makes it easy to find people who really know what they’re doing.”
The growing community, educational materials, and passion keep blacksmithing alive for not only Ortery and Vacek, but all that visit the Log Village.
Nearby, in the woodworking shop, Lon Simpson has managed the benches and tools for more than three decades. He said keeping the old ways visible matters as much as keeping the iron hot.
“In 2003, we built this shop with a donation from a man named Morgan Dobbs, who loved the woodwork here,” Simpson said. “I started with traditional woodworking, then expanded to show how technology changed — from hand planes to machines. I wanted people to see the contrast between the 18th and 19th century.”
That spirit of expansion hasn’t slowed.
On the porch, Simpson recently added a coopering station where visitors can see how barrels once took shape from curved staves and iron hoops. Inside, he’s carved out space for shoe cobbling.
His hope is to someday add another building to showcase a wider variety of trades, but that will require more funding.
For now, he makes the most of the shop, storing most of his tools on site and using it throughout the year for school field trips and woodworking demonstrations. The space also gives him room to prepare new projects for future Old Threshers reunions.
Simpson finds just as much joy in watching new recruits grow. This year, apprentice Luke Lebbeau focused on perfecting the use of a spring pole lathe which he made himself and brought to the Reunion this year. The lathe allows Lebbeau to push his work forward with a simple press of his foot, then a spring snaps it back to starting position as he lets go of the pressure.
While Simpson worried for a couple of years about recruiting new volunteers to keep the tradition alive, the addition of Lebbeau and other younger woodworkers gives him a lot of hope for the longevity of woodworking in the Log Village.
“We have new recruits,” Simpson said. “We’re taking good care of them. That’s how you keep this alive.”
Woodworking for Simpson came after a career in the military and education. Training the next generation has become his calling. “As volunteers’ skills develop, it gives us the ability to spread out, to show more,” he said.
For the blacksmiths and carpenters of Log Village, it’s not nostalgia. It’s continuity — steel on anvil, wood against chisel, skills handed down by doing. The sounds echo through the Reunion grounds in Mt. Pleasant, a reminder that some arts don’t fade if there’s someone to teach, and someone to listen.
Comments: AnnaMarie.Kruse@southeastiowaunion.com
