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Tillers' has a wide variety of products, services,
and publications
to assist you.
Blacksmithing
is rewarding; it empowers you with the ability to forge many of the
tools you will need around a farm or in a wood shop.
Our facilities, animals, and exciting
programs offer young people a more self-reliant
perspective on the world, as an alternative to the dependencies
they see in higher technologies.
It's not as easy as it looks: a 4-H youth tries his hand at
directing a young team at the County Fair.
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Carroll Abbey died on February 16, 1998, of sudden
heart failure while visiting Bobby Miller in Arizona. Many of Tillers'
friends know that Carroll was the force behind the great Abbey Farm Tool
Collection, but he was also a fine farmer, a good friend, and a gentleman.
Carroll was born December 26, 1911 to Clyde and Lila (Dingman) Abbey
in Kalamazoo. He grew up on a farm north of Kilgore Road, now the
switching yard for trains supplying GM's Sprinkle Road plant. At that time
it was open country. Carroll told of braving a blizzard with a team
of horses and sled, cutting through the drifts blowing off the
crop land now serving as the airport, to deliver milk into town
when the city was running low. Carroll's life, in a way, was defined
by the growth of Kalamazoo and the change in rural life. He graduated
from Comstock High School in 1929. He farmed with horses as well as
tractors until 1946. He was old enough to stay on the farm while
his younger brother, George, served in World War II. His memory
was sharp enough to remember George's APO number 50 years after
the war. Carroll climbed a pine tree to install the first television antenna
in the neighborhood, with
a pipe running the height of the tree so he could turn the antenna
to Chicago and Detroit, as there were no stations nearer. The
house hosted many neighbors who wanted to see the new invention.
His retirement mission of saving the old tools, which defined changes in agriculture, from Midwestern
fence rows was driven by his
own observation of change. He thought rural ingenuity should be
saved for future reference and appreciation. Although he never
lived more than a mile from the farm of his boyhood, he experienced
many changes, from farming with horses to working large tractors and marveling
at the power of computers. His farm experience and his quiet intellect
suited him for the role of curator of agricultural history. He knew which
artifacts fit together to tell a story, and he had the determination
to pursue them. He developed a network of farmers from Pennsylvania
to Nebraska to help him find the pieces that he wanted. And he wanted
a lot -- he found about 4,000 pieces to illustrate the past.
Memorials can be given to the Kalamazoo Foundation's Abbey Farms
Endowment Fund, which helps to support the maintenance of the
Collection. The Kalamazoo Foundation's address is 151 South Rose,
Kalamazoo MI, 49007. The Michigan 50% Tax Credit is available for
these gifts.
Tillers intends to help preserve Carroll's Collection as the Kalamazoo Foundation
studies their options.
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REFLECTIONS on Carroll Abbey
While I
grieve at the sudden loss of a friend, in truth I am unusually
blessed to have worked and lived alongside Carroll. At the end
of the day, I miss the option (that I too rarely took) of sitting
down with Carroll and chatting about our world. Not only did I know
he would listen, but I knew he would remember every word of the conversation,
and that he would add his quiet and reassuring insight into how to
work things out.
Carroll was unusually attentive. He remembered every possible name - though
he claimed to have a poor memory. He was observant
and sensitive to the whole world.
Tools and "the hand of man"
were only one aspect of his sensitivity. While talking to him, I
would notice him rub his hand over a piece of woodwork or iron.
His eyes would be following the conversation, but if you looked
at his fingers you could mistake them for those of a blind person
absorbing information through touch. Sometimes he would reminisce
about how his father-in-law would finish a piece of furniture
with many coats of shellac and varnishes, then add a hard clear
shoe polish, and finally give it a spit shine.
Carroll reveled in
workmanship and ingenuity. "It's good to see men work," would be Carroll's
comment, whether he saw us making hay with teams of oxen,
framing a new timber barn, or Morton Buildings'
crew assembling his newest collection barn. His eyes would catch any
system or tool for improving the process. I knew that his keen
eye saw the shortcomings as well as the innovative efforts, but
after the task when he would talk about the beauty of it at the
moment of reflection, he would marvel at the inventiveness of men
at work. (While he used male terms, he treated women at work with
the same interest and respect.)
Carroll has left our community with his "Farm
Tools Introspective."
His Collection was, to him, very much a museum of art -- the art of
the human spirit at work. When I first met him in 1981, three years
after his retirement, he described his mission very humbly and pragmatically,
as pulling tools out of old sheds and fence rows before they were
forever lost, while he still had the ability to drive and scour
the country. Fortunately, he had twenty years for that mission, and
I had 17 years in which to watch him and enjoy his gentlemanly enthusiasm.
I wish I had been in Arizona to lend Bobby Miller a hand.
I regret that I was in Africa as Beverly Reddy gathered his friends
to remember his life, but I joined in the spirit of admiration
of work well done. I admire the good work he accomplished with
his ingenuity, and will work to help the Kalamazoo Foundation
and others preserve his Collection as a memorial to the spirit of
Carroll, as well as all the farmers who have worked this soil.
Thanks to Carroll for letting us share his life. As Sherman would
say, "He was a gentleman."
Dick Roosenberg , Director
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