Remarkable Markers 4

A grave marker featuring gracefully sculpted bundles of wheat is a favorite of taphophiles, or tombstone tourists, visiting Oak Dale Cemetery in Urbana, Ohio. Honoring John and Mary Glenn, the sculpture is amazingly detailed, with the stalks cut in different lengths by the scythe. The wheat establishes a visual reference to an explanation given in the New Testament of the Bible; here is the allusion in its entirety:

“ … that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:37-58; Published by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press)

Detailed Sculpture of Wheat Bundles

In Oak Dale Cemetery, Urbana, Ohio

The harvesting of wheat has generated many important metaphors. In the 1300s in England, death began to be depicted as a skeleton carrying a scythe and wearing a hood. In the mid-1800s, the figure was called the Grim Reaper.

But sheaves, or bundles, of wheat have also represented eternal life. In 1874, Knowles Shaw (1834–1878) from Butler County, Ohio, wrote the well-known Protestant hymn “Bringing in the Sheaves,” for which he wrote both lyrics and music but which soon was sung to a different melody. Shaw based his lyrics on Psalm 126:6, which reads “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”

Wheat has also inspired hundreds of country fairs that commemorate vintage farming equipment. 

In my book entitled The Harvest Story: Recollections of Old-Time Threshermen, I quoted LeRoy Blaker, who told how big public shows of old-time farming equipment originated:

There were several groups of threshermen having demonstrations of grain threshing about the time of World War Two. 

Mr. Perry Hayden, a Quaker miller of Tecumseh, Michigan, … planted a cubic inch of wheat containing 360 kernels in the fall of 1940. The next July 1941, the wheat was carefully harvested …

… every kernel [was] saved … . After Mr. Hayden gave his tithe or one-tenth to his Quaker church, he had the remaining forty-five cubic inches planted on September 26, 1941.  …

This second crop was cut with cradles on July 4th, 1942 … . It yielded seventy pounds of wheat … . This was 1.16 bushels of wheat from the original cubic inch in two years or 2,448.6 cubic inches or 881,499 kernels from the original 360 kernels.

On the following Sunday, ten percent or seven pounds were taken to the Quaker church as the tithe.

This sixty-three pounds of wheat was planted … in early October 1942. Early in 1943, Henry Ford heard about Mr. Hayden’s wheat-tithing project and sent some of his antique threshing equipment from Greenfield Village to thresh this 1943 crop.  …

… I attended the wheat harvesting at Tecumseh in July 1943 and the big threshing with lots of Henry Ford’s antique threshing equipment … on July 22nd 1944 …

From those interesting demonstrations, I was inspired to have the first Thresher’s Reunion gathering on my farm on July 30, 1945.

The National Threshers Association has continually hosted threshing reunions ever since.

Good Morning, Springboro! Crows in a Field of Wheat (Last Installment in This Series)

My original watercolor painting of crows in a field of wheat stubble is an unintended homage to Vincent van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows (1890). As I was standing alongside the road and admiring the rich orange of the mowed stalks of wheat, crows flew in to feast on fallen grain. Two landed and eyed me suspiciously while the others rose and fell like umbrellas in the sky. I was not consciously thinking about Vincent’s work, but, synchronistically, I completed my small composition on the 14th of July, only a few days after Vincent finished his. Naturally, he and I were drawn to paint crows and wheat because most wheat in Europe and the United States since the nineteenth century has been harvested beginning in early July.

Crows in a Field of Wheat

Original Watercolor Painting by Robert T. Rhode

I have written extensively about threshing wheat. In my book entitled The Harvest Story: Recollections of Old-Time Threshermen (Purdue University Press, 2001), I describe “shocks of bronze-colored wheat stretching across the golden fields of summer.” I explain that, by the late 1800s, wheat threshing had assumed a position of towering importance in many areas of the United States. Eventually, wheat was crowned king of cash crops throughout much of North America. Wheat made Kansas and neighboring states the world’s breadbasket. In the time of my grandfather and father in Indiana, farmers formed threshing rings to go from farm to farm helping one another with machines to separate the grains of wheat from the stalks on which the grains had grown. In those days, children thought of “thrashin’” as “Christmas in July”! Families collaborated in the labor of the harvest and sat down to noonday dinners of epic proportions. Most rural folks who experienced wheat threshing considered the event so positive as to be among their favorite memories.

When I exhibited my Case steam engine at the Will County show in Illinois for several years, I had the opportunity to help load bundles, or sheaves, of wheat in the late afternoons. Even though the work was hot and chaff stuck to my neck, I look back on the work as about the most fun I have ever had! The slanting rays of the evening sun made the entire field golden. It felt good to use my pitchfork to lift the bundles high up to where the bundle loader, standing atop the sheaves that we were piling on the wagon, could reach the bundles of those of us who were handing them up; he snagged them with his pitchfork and positioned them where he wanted them. The task of bringing in the sheaves had real meaning, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with my friends amid the wheat stubble.

Probably the crows were having just as much fun this July. They appeared to be happy as they dined on wheat that the present-day combine had missed.        

If you would like to purchase one of the paintings in this series, send me a message through my website at roberttrhode.org or via Facebook. Each work of art measures 5″ by 7″ and consists of Cotman Water Colours by Winsor & Newton on acid-free Montval watercolor paper.