Collectibles come with great background stories at Mennonite auction

The upcoming 48th Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale April 8-9 will, as usual, feature something for everyone: excellent ethnic foods, beautiful hand-stitched quilts and all kinds of collector vehicles, from tractors and mowers to a low mileage Oldsmobile coupe and an unrestored 1890s vintage horse-drawn buggy.

The food will be available all day both days of the sale, held inside two buildings at the Kansas State Fairgrounds in Hutchinson. The quilts and vehicles can only be had during the main Saturday auctions.

But while only a handful of folks will come away with a prized keepsake, everyone who attends the auctions will be able to enjoy the stories behind the collectibles going across the auction block.

Take that 1948 Oldsmobile, coupe, for example.

“Suzanne Regier bought this car new in 1948 after her husband died. She only drove the car once, to the courthouse, to get her driver’s license,” says Jerry Toews, the man in charge of collecting, repairing and cleaning up the various vehicles sold each year.

Regier worked as the manager of the Bethel College bookstore in North Newton, but walked to work regularly. Her children, and then her grandchildren, logged most of the 47,000 original miles still showing on the car’s odometer, driving it to high school and then college. According to Toews, the grandkids could confirm the Olds was capable of speeds of at least 80 mph on the highways around Newton, back in the 1960s.

“It’s powered by a flathead 6-cylinder engine, but it has the 4-speed Hydramatic automatic transmission, a very positive-shifting transmission favored by hot rodders,” Toews said.

After Regier’s death, the Olds was stored in a machine shed, but eventually ended up sitting in a shelter belt. It was eventually retrieved by Melvin Klaassen, her son-in-law, who restored it over the span of many years, putting a new interior and paint job into the project. The car was donated to the sale by Melvin and Donna Klaassen’s estate.

A beautifully restored Ford 8n tractor donated by Ed Landis of Abilene has a show-car-quality paint job provided by master craftsman Lowell Heinrichs of Hillsboro. A huge Ford F-750 farm truck provided by Jim Roupp of Newton began its life as an over-the-road semi trailer tractor. And then there’s the Lyon buggy, stored in a barn south of Walton for decades, donated by Ella Regier in memory of her husband, Edwin, who was very involved in the early days of the relief sale.

A last-minute donation to this year’s auction came from Charles Hubbard of Derby, who provided a nicely restored 1951 Allis Chalmers WD tractor, which he and his brother bought brand new and farmed with for years. Hubbard had contacted the Wichita On Wheels page about donating the tractor and we passed the information on to Toews, who managed to get it into the auction.

“It’s a very nice tractor,” said Toews, who has been in charge of vehicles for the auction for a couple of decades.

“We’ve got lots of good stuff this year,” he said. “You just never know what it’s going to be. The phone rings and I go pick it up. Back in the early days we would get one tractor, maybe one car. It has really grown. It brings in good money for a good cause,” Toews said.

Last year’s sale netted more than $500,000. Proceeds benefit the Mennonite Central Committee, which oversees aid projects in more than 55 countries around the world.

For a complete rundown on events and items up for sale, go to: kansas.mccsale.org

This story was originally published April 2, 2016 at 7:43 AM with the headline "Collectibles come with great background stories at Mennonite auction."