Remembering the Farm: John Graham, blacksmith, welder, inventor, legend

 If there was one man, other than my father, who could take credit for keeping our farm operating in the 50s and 60s when I was home, it would be John Graham. John ran the welding shop for the Landis (Sask) Coop from 1951 until he retired. Landis was a village located about 5 miles from our farm. Especially in spring and fall, farmers including my father, counted on him to keep their equipment running and he did. You could buy parts but no one could afford them.

The welding shop located behind the Coop Garage looked like an abandoned building. There was enough scrap metal in and around it to keep the furnaces at IPSCO (as it was then) going for a week. The inside was dimly lit as much of John's work was on equipment outside the shop. It was uninsulated but I figure John was impervious to heat or cold. The shop was a fascinating place for kids but you daren't go in there. There was always something hot or sharp or welding sparks or acetylene flame. You stayed out of the way.

John was about the size and shape of a square bale, maybe a bit longer. I know because I have seen him several times climb inside a bale chamber to chisel loose a broken bolt or similar. He was black with grease and soot from head to toe. He loved people and people loved him. His one good eye always had a twinkle and he loved to tease kids. 

In 1966, spring was very late. I was home from university in April and dad told me to take the tractor and go and get a 16' rod weeder he had purchased at a local farm auction. The lane into the yard had been plowed out and the drifts were five feet high. I did not realize the lane narrowed in until it was about two feet narrower than the rod weeder. I was well and truly stuck in it and had bent the wings that stuck out to the side and drove the rod.  Nothing to do but keep going. Dad laughed and told me to take it to John. The rest of the year John told everyone I had been working summerfallow and got caught between two snow banks.

John was entirely self taught. He never finished highschool. His welding wasn't fancy but it held. He could rebuild shattered gears or make them from scratch on a lathe he built himself. He built his own forge,  a sheet metal roller, a power hacksaw, a 50 ton press, a concave grinder, an adjustable power threader, a sheet metal bender, a three speed drill press that would take a 1" bit, and a power hammer. He never used blueprints for the tools he built. He invented a roller machine for putting the curve back in cultivator shanks that were bent when the shovel caught on a rock. Dad needed that machine several times for our 14' Graham Holme cultivator. 

John was born in 1905 in Scotland on the estate of Earl Grey. His family emigrated to New Brunswick in 1909 where John at age 14 worked in a pulp mill. The family of five sons moved west in the 20's. His parents, Archie and Margaret, John and his older brother Tom farmed 2 miles east of our place.  He lost an eye to a steel chip in the 1940s working at the Palo salt mine and said it took him four years to be able to judge distance again. Archie and Margaret passed away in the 60s and the brothers continued to batch in the home place. When Tom died in 1981, John stayed on.

John never married though he admitted he always liked the girls. When he was young he could "work all day and dance all night but now I just work all day". I do not know exactly when John retired. He was still working at age 81 though he took his time and took a few days off once in a while. He passed away in 1994 at age 89. No one took his place. Nor could anyone. 

Tom (L) and John (R). 1975. John had a clean cap that day

John in his work shop 1985

John at home 1985 age almost 81 years

Information for this post came from articles in the Coop Consumer 27/05/1975 and the Biggar Independent 31/12/1985. These were provided by John's niece Margaret.