Wrenching Tales 

 

On April 25, Ted Runyon’s Ford collection, along with several items belonging to his late son, were auctioned off by Hoyland Auctions. “Ted has lived in and out of town all his life. He farmed and had a Ford dealership,” Randy Hoyland said.

Ted will be 92 in July and thought it was time for a sale. His Ford story begins at a very young age. “When I was nine, I bought my first Model T in 1932,” Ted said when he shared his memories at his kitchen table a few days before the auction. “I hauled water for a threshing ring and made $5. I bought my first Model T for $4. After I tinkered with it, it ran.”

The Model T served as a means of transportation – and more. “That fall we went camping and my brother rolled it over an embankment. I put a new body on it.”

Since then, Ted said he has never been without a Model T, and next came a truck phase. “I had two Model T trucks that I did light hauling of cobs, trash and coal around here.” Over the years his wife, Marjorie, who is 86, said he has owned about 19 Model Ts. (Ted and Marjorie both lost spouses and found one another after their losses and have been married about eight years.)

After Ted started hauling around Delevan, Ill., in 1939, he bought a Ford 1.5-ton truck and hauled livestock to Peoria. When he made a drive to Emden, he was hired to be a mechanic. A friend took over the hauling business and Ted became a full-time mechanic until he was drafted in 1943.

In the Army he served as a mechanic in the Air Force Ordnance. “I worked at an airbase and served in Italy. We came up through the Middle East, then went to Italy, where I was from 1944 to 1945.”

Back home he worked on the family farm until the fall of 1945 when he went to work for Heinken International Harvester as a mechanic. In 1948 he started farming full-time. It was only about eight years ago that he parted with his dad’s old Rumely Oil Pull, which was used on a threshing machine.

While farming, Ted opened a Ford dealership in 1956 and ran it until 1976. At one time he had two dealerships – one in Green Valley and the other in Delevan, which he sold and is still operational.

When asked how he managed to farm and have the dealerships, Ted was matter-of-fact: “I worked hard … I farmed until I was 81, and ended up with 500 acres. We used Case and John Deere equipment.” After retiring from farming, he moved to town.

At the sale there were a variety of Case tractors, a C, Model L, Model 500, LA, Model 400 and more. Ted also had a 1938 F20 with a crank start, an Oliver 88, 1945 2-N Ford, 1945, 1923 Fordson and his dad’s 1924 F20 Farmall with a cultivator that has been on the place since he bought it new.

Tractor sale highlights included the Oliver 88, which brought $2,850, the Case 500 for $2,300 and his father’s F20 for $1,550, with the second F20 bringing $650.

The auction had a few of Ted’s vehicles, like the 1925 Speedster Model T with an overhead conversion and 1914 Ford Model T touring car that was restored in 1952. The touring car sold for $4,400 and the Speedster was the biggest sale of the day, bringing in $6,200.

He also had a 1926 Ford sedan two-door, a 1924 Model T, a one-ton truck, a 1955 C-600 Ford grain truck that brought $4,500 and a 1926 C cab truck at the sale, as well as an array of Model T parts. At one time he had enough parts to put 15 cars together. One rare part Ted had at the auction was an overhead valve conversion.

There was a lot of attention directed to his rare Ford Model T Staude. This was used to convert a car to a tractor with a few easy steps. “My Staude tractor came from a friend that I sold cars to,” Ted said.

He put the kit on his 1922 Model T frame and motor. “I took the Staude to Jacksonville and Chillicothe’s Three Sisters Park and showed it there.” The Staude brought $5,000.

Ted is keeping two beautiful Model Ts: one 1915 beautifully restored and the other partially completed. He collected a lot of literature and memorabilia and has been a diehard Ford guy all his life.

Randy Hoyland runs the family auction business along with his wife, Tiffany. It sells farm real estate, machinery, antiques and collectibles, primarily in the Tazewell County area.

“We have been in business 30 years. Most of my employees have been with me for 20 to 25 years. Randy Pfanz and Doug Smith have been with me since the beginning,” he said. Helping out at the auction was Jerry Wolfe, Doug Miller and Russ Miller. Jerry, a personal friend of Ted’s, worked for months getting equipment up and running.

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.