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| Couple leaves Midwest, but not love for engines |
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SEBRING, Fla. — In this town known for its raceway, is a retirement community for retired Baptist ministers, missionaries and church workers. It offers homes to rent, mobile homes and an RV park. Esther and Truman Jingst chose a house when they moved to Sebring to be near their son two years ago.
With an orange tree right outside the window, this is a different scene than what the couple was accustomed to back in the Midwest. They lived in Stephenville, Mo., which is about 35 miles from Quincy, Ill., before resettling in Sebring after Truman‘s health declined. In addition to the obvious love of his ministry, he and Esther attended antique tractor and gas engine shows in their mini motor home and pulled a trailer that held Truman’s engines. “We had a camper, and I loved it,” Esther said.
Truman, who is 82, recalled how a Baptist minister got into gas engines. “When I was a young teenager, Dad had 13 to 15 head of sheep. There was a sheep shearer and he was going to give it up. I got into this hobby helping him.”
What is the connection between sheep shearing and gas engines? “You have to have an engine to run the clippers,” he explained. “My first engine was a Johnson Iron Horse four-cylinder engine.”
It didn’t take Truman long to get the hang of shearing. “I helped the gentleman, then we hit a good size flock and he couldn’t shear them all. It took me a while, but I got it done.
“We went from farm to farm and I kept noticing the engines.”
That stuck with him and later, when he had a chance, he began to acquire his collection. “As a pastor, we moved around and we picked up engines here and there,” he said.
Because they lived in a parsonage, they didn’t always have a place to store their engines, so Esther said, “We stored them in his parents’ garage.”
“I pastored in Illinois, Missouri and Iowa for the regular Baptist church,” Truman said. “The last couple of churches, I had engines stored everywhere.”
This issue was settled, though, when they bought a place where they were able to store all of their engines under one roof. This is when they were really able to enjoy their hobby.
“We were able to attend several shows. We drove our mini motor home and hauled about 10 to 12 engines. We did this for around 20 years,” Esther said.
Show attendance had to be adjusted to fit Truman’s schedule because, “I was still preaching pulpit supply.” This meant he filled in for vacationing ministers, he explained.
When camping, Esther usually cooked. She needed to make special meals because Truman suffers from celiac disease, and requires a gluten-free diet. “I have my own recipe book,” Esther shared – she uses rice, potato or other flour as a substitute for wheat.
To the shows, the couple usually took only engines, though they owned a few John Deere tractors. “We had two John Deere H’s and a B,” Truman said.
Esther related the story of one disastrous trip on which they hauled a tractor that was too heavy for the trailer, then the tractor wouldn’t start and was hard to unload: “We didn’t take tractors after that, only engines.”
Truman had the engine hauling down to a science. They would haul the engines on trailer and the engines were mounted on two-by-fours. They have four children who would join them on occasion, and Esther’s late brother, Charlie Felgar, would sometimes join them at shows as well. Charlie often showed his beautifully restored Allis-Chalmers Model B tractor. The shows were great for this couple, who loved the people they met and the things they saw. Two years ago when they moved they had a sale, but their son Darrell, who lives nearby, kept a few engines to bring over to his dad’s so sometimes Truman can still hear the motor purr. The boys kept the JD tractors as well.
These days outside their living room window, rather than a shed filled with tractors and engines, the Jingsts have an orange tree and neighbors who share the same faith and have similar religious backgrounds. The engines no longer take up space in their backyard, but they remain in Truman’s and Esther’s’ memories and pictures.
Over the years, Truman Jingst herded flocks of sheep and congregations on the farm, in the church and occasionally, over the trill of a gas engine.
May his loving words chug on and linger over the years. |
| 5/6/2009 |
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