Preserving Memories at the Overstreet-Kerr Farm

The Overstreet-Kerr Historical Farm is a place where memories are preserved. Just ask Ruth Qualls of Wister.

A couple of years ago Mrs. Qualls contributed a John Deere horse drawn disc-plow and a John Deere horse drawn disk cultivator (wiggletail) to the farm’s antique farm equipment collection. They have been restored to near-original condition and are now on display at the farm.

“It’s remarkable what a nice job they did,” says Mrs. Qualls, about the renovated equipment. “It’s like they just came out of the factory.”

Mrs. Qualls and her husband Melvin married in 1934 and began farming in the Wister area. At first they raised cotton, and later corn, vegetables, and hay. They farmed for many years with big draft horses and with mules, using the plow and cultivator donated to the historical farm.

“It was hard work—what we did farming. We did a little bit of everything,” Mrs. Qualls remembers. “I enjoyed it, though. I plowed and did whatever we needed.”

Mrs. Qualls also ran the restaurant at Wister Lake for twenty-five years, where she says she met “some of the nicest people you could ever meet.” Her husband continued to farm and raise cattle. He died in 1995.

“My daddy would have been so pleased,” says the Qualls’ daughter Melba Crane, who has the Wister Flower Shop, about seeing the newly restored equipment on display. “It brought tears to my eyes.”

Jim Combs, manager of the exhibit, takes great pains to make sure the restoration is done right. Many of the pieces in the collection are John Deere, and Combs works closely with the reference archivist at company headquarters in Moline, Illinois, to learn about colors, the dates of manufacture and years each piece was in use.

Using this information, Scott Phillips and Simon Billy repair, clean and paint the equipment in the Kerr Center shop.

About twenty-five pieces of both hay and grain production equipment dating from the late 1800s to 1940, many of them once used by farm families in the area, are now on display in a new 38 foot by 80 foot equipment barn made of rough-sawn oak, and in other renovated barns.

The new exhibit display is unique in that it will help tell the story of agriculture in eastern Oklahoma, from the days of the Choctaw nation, through the Great Depression (John Steinbeck’s Joad family, from his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath, started their journey to California from Sallisaw, ten miles north of the farm).

Combs hopes to continue to collect equipment through donation and loans from the public. Due to time restraints, only easily restorable or already restored equipment will be accepted.

The farm is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Donations of equipment, funds for restoring equipment or the development of the educational display are tax deductible. (Donors will be given a receipt to use for tax purposes). Those who donate or loan items will be acknowledged on the display itself.

To find out more, call Combs at 918-966-3396 or email cjim@crosstel.net .

See Photos