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The collection buildings hold over 4,000 Abbey Collection
artifacts.
Steve Stier joined Tillers staff in January 2002
as Co-Curator of Historical Collections.
Dick Roosenberg worked with Carroll on the Abbey Collection since
1989. He has served as curator along with his other duties.
Volunteers Sewell Mason and Howard Cain help create heated work
areas and cases for exhibits. Volunteers also help with research
and exhibit development.
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Historical Tool
Collections
The
Abbey Collection 
Carroll Abbey, born
in 1911, watched and lived through a changing world. During his
childhood and youth, he worked with his parents and grandparents
using horses and then tractors. Carroll was always attentive to
the skill of the workman and ingenuity of the tools of the previous
era. During his last 20 years -- his retirement -- he collected
tools out of old sheds and fence rows before they were lost forever.
In his quest he gathered over 4000 artifacts that illustrate innovations
over time and how they were an integral part of our rural economic
development and agricultural life. The Abbey Collection overflows
18,000 sq.ft. of pole barns that he built.
The Jeannie Ritzman Collection 
Jeannie was a blacksmithing student of Herb Nehring
and enjoyed volunteering with Tillers. Back at home in Ann Arbor
she put her skills to work in making medival armor. In late 2000,
she lost a long struggle to cancer and left her library and large
collection of sheetmetal and smithing tools to Tillers.
The Tillers Collection 
While Tillers' focus is on preserving and sharing
skills, tools are the means for implementing and releasing skill.
Tools are critical to rural productivity. Tillers continues to collect
donations of early farm tools to complement the Abbey Collection.
In accepting these tools, Tillers negotiates the uses acceptable
to donors. Some items are for exhibit only, but many are accepted
for field demonstration use, and some are destined for
international development projects.
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Carroll Abbey, with his brother George and wife Ruth, collected rural tools.
This 1870s Walter Wood reaper is
part of Tillers' general collection of farming tools. Its donors agreed to its use in limited field demonstrations.
US Patent Records are included in the Collections Library which serves
as a research tool for volunteers and guests.
Classes in historical collections and exhibits are designed for those working
in historical preservation.
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