WINNERS
Chronological List

2005 (pdf)
2004 (pdf)
2003 (pdf)
2002
2001 (pdf)
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1981
1980
1979
1978

 

The Banta Award 1991

 

Threshing Days: The Farm Paintings of Lavern Kammerude
by Chester Garthwaite
Wisconsin Folk Museum, 1990

The 1991 Banta Award BOOK
The theme of Threshing Days might be said to represent continuity and change in Wisconsin farming. This portrait in words and paintings of agriculture in the 1920s and 1930s depicts some facets of farming that have changed, such as the extensive use of horses, as well as other traditions, such as county fairs and farm auctions that continue today.

Each painting and accompanying text must be considered together as a unit. Garthwaite's simple and dignified text illuminates the detailed precision conveyed in each of Kammerude's expressive art pieces. One example is the discussion of farm equipment and other technology. Garthwaite explains what technology has replaced earlier equipment and how it has changed Wisconsin farm life by making work less labor intensive and more productive or how it has decreased the winter isolation of individual farms.

The paintings reflect scenes of farm activities covering each season of the year. The social side of rural life during the 1920s and 1930s are also shown: farm neighbors working side-by-side, or meeting at a farmhouse square dance, a country church, a rural cheese factory. The details are all the more amazing since Kammerude painted from the memories of his youth and adolescence, capturing that era before the decline of family farming.

Agriculture has formed an important part of Wisconsin's heritage. While not as many Wisconsinites make their way farming as in the past, it still is a vital force in Wisconsin and America. While set in Wisconsin, Threshing Days would be of interest to anyone who has an interest in farm life or rural history. It serves as both an agricultural history and a social history, and as a work of art.

Threshing Days is a remarkably successful symbiosis of text and image, each providing value and resonance to the other. This time capsule of Wisconsin farm life has a lasting place in Wisconsin's and America's libraries.

The AUTHOR
Chester Garthwaite

Chester Garthwaite has spent his entire life living in rural communities in Wisconsin and being involved with agriculture. Born in 1919, he was raised on a farm in Mt. Hope, Wisconsin, and attended a rural grade school and small high school. After receiving a degree in Agriculture from Platteville State Teacher's College, he started teaching for the Agriculture Department in Granton.

When drafted into the military, Garthwaite taught for three years at the Military School in Fort Warren, Wyoming and then was sent overseas as a surveyor of military cemeteries.

After several years of teaching Agriculture in Mineral Point, Garthwaite returned to the family farm and farmed for 32 years. He then returned to teaching as an Adult Farm Instructor for South West Vocational Tech until his retirement. Even retirement did not slow him down, as he spent one year with the Strategy-on-Survival Program for Troubled Farmers.

Garthwaite's interest in writing began in college where he spent 2 1/2 years writing a column in the school newspaper, Exponent. He has written several children's books which, especially Animal Math, have been popular with teachers. It was his autobiography, They Are in My Genes which brought him together with Lavern Kammerude for the creation of Threshing Days.

Garthwaite currently makes his home in Fennimore with Eugenia, his wife of 49 years. He still farms the homestead in Mt. Hope.

1991 WLA Literary Awards Committee Members