By Denise Lana,
Venturing downstairs into his family room, Wasson chuckled as he explained, “My family room is different than most!”
George Bernard Shaw once said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”
Decorah resident Boyd Wasson must have modeled his life after this mantra. At 87, Wasson is as much a child as he ever was, with his enviable collection of antique tractors and a self-designed and hand-built electric train in his family room.
Wasson was one of three brothers who grew up working the family’s traditional corn-and-beans, hogs-and-cattle farm. As a young boy, he was intrigued by all things mechanical, dismantling old lawn mowers, clocks, anything within his grasp.
“I was five or six when I started taking things apart – I even took apart my mother’s watch that was a graduation gift, but I never put it back together,” Wasson reminisced. “I was completely unaware of its significance.”
As he grew older and began driving the tractors on the farm, he would perform all the mechanical work on them. Merely a means of transportation, the tractors were simply a means to an end in Wasson’s eyes.
After going away to college and majoring in industrial arts, his loves expanded to wood and metal working, machine shop, drafting, electricity and electronics. In his words, he majored in “being a Jack-of-all-trades and a master of none.”
He soon met and married Trudy Sondrol, a “Jill-of-all-trades” in her own right. She ran a thriving dressmaking business while he taught high school electronics classes. He moved on to become a shop teacher and technical writer at Collins Radio, while Trudy began winning various blue ribbons with her rosemaling prowess and quilting talents. She also collected Porsgrund Norwegian porcelain plates and pewter plates and dining ware. Together, husband and wife then dove into the real estate business for nearly two decades, but Trudy never stopped painting and quilting. Trudy passed in 2009, and in 2012 Boyd moved to Decorah and started collecting tractors.
“It takes me back to the farm,” explained Wasson. “I like tinkering with them, there is always something that needs attention.”
With a quiver in his voice, Wasson’s eyes fill with tears as he continued, “Sometimes I will find a hill in town, drive my tractor up there and listen to the tractor bellow. It’s loud, but it’s a thrill. I love the sound.”
Walking through his house, one can’t help but be overwhelmed by the multitude of lavishly painted wooden pieces that decorate each wall, Trudy’s swirling signature painted at the bottom of each one. Wasson’s kitchen is framed by the
porcelain plates his bride collected across decades, and his dining room walls are laden with an abundance of rosemaling and a long row of pewter plates. Even in her absence, Wasson keeps her art alive.
“I have more rosemaling than anybody!” he laughed. “I also have a lot of quilts, but the best ones, the ones Trudy won blue ribbons with, are at church.”
Venturing downstairs into his family room, Wasson chuckled as he explained, “My family room is different than most!”
Scattered and suspended across the ceiling and walls is a vast array of metal trinkets and tools. Holding up a patinaed curved item, he said, “This is one of my latest acquisitions – an antique nostril clamp for bulls so you could lead them!”
Removing a thin dark pan from the wall, Wasson recalled, “These were my mother’s. It’s junk nowadays, but she used to make corn meal mush in it. Now I make corn meal mush once a month.”
Wasson unhooked a small, bladed tool, dark and aged. “My dad cut my hair with this one time, talk about pulling my hair!”
Passing through the antiques room, Wasson pulls back a cover and reveals an intricately designed electric train, complete with a panel of switches and labels. “These switches operate all the track switches, and there are lights in the buildings,” he explained. “It’s the Chicago Northwestern Train, the one that went through my childhood farm every day!”
On the far side of the large room, past a long workbench and a wall cramped with hand tools, is every piece of woodworking equipment imaginable: chop saw, table saw, lathe, band saw, drill press. Wasson expressed, “Aged and worn, this shop is reminiscent of my shop experience when I was younger.”
Wasson, who is on the Nordic Fest board and a member of the Lions Club, has also served with the Winneshiek County Historic Society and is a familiar face at area events. But as time marches on, he laments about growing older and having to let go of his treasures that make him feel young and connected to various stages of his life. “For ten years running, I drove my tractors in four parades each year, but now at my age I should be getting rid of the tractors. I don’t know what I am going to do with all these things! For most everyone, this is just old stuff, but for me, all these things mean something more. I’ve got to make a decision.”
After Trudy died, Wasson had a display of her rosemaling in the Dragonfly Bookstore window, which was included in that year’s Nordic Fest paper. He also donated her rosemaling and quilting tools and materials to the Vesterheim Museum, but he doesn’t want to just give away all his treasures and his wife’s rosemaling and would love for people to want to buy them. “I fear the interest of all things Norsk is faltering. The reason I have so many plates, we couldn’t sell them. The smaller plates were big sellers, but the big plates are too expensive.”
Now, with his tractors, antiques, electric train and woodworking tools, along with his wife’s innumerable rosemaling pieces, quilts and dish collections, Wasson questions whether he is going to stop collecting. His eyes light up with childlike excitement every time he speaks of his tractors, and he beams with pride when asked to share stories of his past.
“On a tractor, I get a feeling of nostalgia. Trudy’s talent is alive in her art,” Wasson summarized. “I’ve debated building another building for more tractors. I should be getting rid of them, not adding more! At 87, I keep trying to get my doctors to give me a ten-year guarantee!”
If playing keeps someone young, Wasson surely has years ahead to continue riding tractors and sharing his many collections and youthful joy with all who know him.
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