Auction features a lifetime of collections, memories

Estate includes farm toys, trucks, model trains

By HANS MADSEN, Messenger staff writer
Ronald Chrischilles, of Fenton, spent most of his life collecting farm toys, trucks and model trains. He had hundreds of the colorful John Deeres, Farmalls, Cases and just about every other type of tractor that’s ever plowed a field.

The bulk of the collection was auctioned off Friday and Saturday at the Webster County Fairgrounds.

Chrischilles died in June 1988.

His wife, Verda, kept the collection to show to people, pretty much as her husband had left it.

She died last year.

For their four children, all 10 of their grandchildren and the one great-grandchild, it was hard to watch the collection go. It had been a source of many fond family memories and stories.

Daughter Linda Chrischilles explained how her dad would get nervous when another sibling was due.

“He brought his wife a tractor in the hospital,” she said. “When she was in labor, he was so nervous he’d come back with several tractors.”

Visiting implement dealers, where the tractors were purchased, was his way of calming down.

“He knew the seed dealers well, knew the farmers and implement dealers,” Eugene Chrischilles explained.

On another occasion, returning home from a family outing, the women found him on the floor with the boys. He had constructed an entire farm scene, using string, popcorn, oatmeal and sewing pins for fence posts.

“They were all on the floor playing farm,” she explained, “He was such a kid at heart.”

Eugene Chrischilles explained that his dad started collecting back in the early ’50s, recalling a small collection in the ’60s when he was a child. The collection really took off with the birth of Russell in 1965.

“The family was always blessed at Christmas,” he said with a big smile.

Chrischilles kept the collection in his basement, building shelving to hold the collection and using barn wood from the farm he grew up on as paneling. One end of the room was made up to look like a corn crib.

Down the center, growing from a Christmas present, was his model train layout. He had many farm scenes on the layout and a set of tents made to look just like the 4077th M.A.S.H., his favorite television program.

Watching the collection go was hard for the family.

“My oldest daughter Denise started crying,” Linda Chrischilles said. “She got to help Dad put the trains together.”

It was also a time for the family to share, gathering in a hotel room Friday night.

“We talked about our memories,” she said.

Each of the children — Eugene, Linda, Angela and Russell — made several purchases at the auction, buying items that for each of them held a special memory or two and might very well become the beginning of their own collections.



Contact Hans Madsen at (515) 573-2141 or hmadsen@messengernews.net