About 40 years ago, our cousin Norma Dalen was clearing out things as she was downsizing.
She had inherited the picture (of Knudt E. Lyseng and Marit) from her father (our Uncle Nils),
but she felt that the picture
should remain in a Lyseng family, so when she was going to be
visiting relatives around Camrose,
she decided to bring this picture along – along with another
picture that I will elaborate on
at the end of this letter.
She had brought it from Saskatoon to give to her Uncle George, but found out that Mom and
Dad were visiting with Haleen and I in Edmonton. She drove up to Edmonton and presented it
to Dad - who had a lot of memories of it, as it used to hang in our Grandparent's home.
Dad explained to Haleen and I, that it was a picture of the Lyseng Threshing Outfit before they
moved to Canada (about 1900). The steam engine in this picture is very different, in that the smoke-
stack is at the rear as it was designed to burn straw instead of relying on coal or wood.
The thresher is a forerunner of later machines where the straw was blown into straw piles. You
will note that this piece of machinery uses a conveyer system to take the straw up – but requires
fellows to move it with pitchforks. They must have thought they were in heaven when the newer
models with blowers, eliminated the need to stack the straw.
-Larry Lyseng
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