By Emily Jennings
Elburn
Posted Friday, October 28, 2005

Last Saturday began cold, wet and early. Dark clouds were a fitting backdrop for the machines, glowing with lights, as they rumbled through the drizzle into a vast field of corn just south of Elburn.

Massive, mysterious, amazing — combine after combine chugged into place. Tractors pulling grain carts and semi-trailer trucks scurried behind like courtiers attending their king.

Men let engines idle as they climbed down to consult with other men — baseball hats, jeans, boots and flannel intermingled, hands in pockets. One gestured, gave out maps.

A choreographed performance ensued, as beautiful as any metropolitan ballet: harvest gathered on a grand scale.

From where I stood, the machines were so huge, the field so broad, I could see only three or four groupings at a time. But I could hear others in the distance all around, and I wished for the ability to hover and watch from the sky, and drink in the miracle of it all.

It was something to see.

“We’re very grateful, of course,” said Percy Meredith, standing beside me. It was for Percy’s son, Curt, that all this was happening. “He can’t be around all the dust, you know,” Percy said.

Curt was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tonsils in July, at the age of 44. Since then he has undergone surgeries, tests and treatments.

Leaving their teenage daughters, Angie and Madeline, with friends, Curt and his wife, Beth, travel to the University of Chicago Hospital for radiation and chemotherapy every day from Sunday through Friday, return home for nine days and then do it again. This schedule will continue into December.

“The side effects have been really hard on him,” Beth said.

She described vomiting, mouth sores, constant pain and such extreme nausea that he couldn’t stop hiccupping.

“He’s handling it OK, but it’s hard to watch,” she said. She and Curt have known each other since they were children.

Curt's chances for survival are good, Beth said. “The cure rate is 80 percent if you take everything into account,” she said. “We know God is helping us through. He is answering our prayers.”

Curt Meredith is a farmer, descended from a long agricultural heritage in Elburn. The Meredith name appears frequently in the area’s history; a road here bears that name. On Curt’s mother’s side, the Newton line can be traced to the first white settlers in what would become Elburn, back in 1834.

Curt had more than 2,600 acres of corn and soybeans planted in five fields surrounding Elburn when his cancer was diagnosed.

That is an area roughly bigger than Geneva’s Mill Creek (650 acres) and Elburn’s Blackberry Creek (625 acres) subdivisions combined. A football field is about one acre. Imagine 2,600 football fields lined up next to each other.

As harvest time drew near, Curt called Mike Pitstick, another farmer and friend since elementary school, and asked for help.

“People don’t understand,” Pitstick said. “With farmers, all the money they make in a year comes down to one month. Timing is critical.”

All the farmers are trying to get their crop harvested in the same window of time. Pitstick began working on Curt’s fields in addition to his own. Using Curt’s brand-new 12-row $200,000 combine — dubbed “the Cadillac” of combines by farmers I talked to — Pitstick was able to finish 1,400 acres of Curt’s fields with the help of a few other farmers.

As the word spread that Curt needed help, more farmers volunteered, and the idea of getting together and finishing the work in one day was born.

Pitstick worked with Ron Alms at the Elburn Co-op to organize who would go where and what equipment they had or lacked. Stover Bros. Trucking in Elburn provided semi-trucks. Theis Oil Co. helped with fuel. DeKalb Implements filled in with needed machinery.

Karen Cornell, Elburn Co-op office manager and dispatcher, who is also Curt’s stepmother-in-law, supervised food donations from Papa G’s restaurant, Anderson’s Market and the Elburn Lions Club and many homebaked desserts from families in the community.

Last Saturday is when it all came together. Millions of dollars in machinery — 15 combines, 15 tractors and grain carts, 20 or more semi-trailer trucks — and men enough to operate them all converged on three of Meredith’s fields, moving up and down the rows at about 4 mph.

Volunteers delivered sack lunches to the men working the fields and the extra workers at the Elburn Co-op facility on Meredith Road, where the semi-trucks delivered the grain to be dried and stored in silos. In the evening, when all the work was done, a dinner was served for everyone who helped.

At 1 p.m., all the machinery paraded with a police escort through downtown Elburn, up to the main Meredith field where routes 47 and 38 meet. Within two hours, the 300 acres there had been harvested.

In one day, a total of 820 acres was harvested. “That’s a good 10 or 14 days of work for one farmer,” said Ron Alms. “Of course, that depends on the weather.”

“They’re all trying to do the same thing with a limited amount of resources,” said Pitstick of farmers in general. “To have them just drop everything and help each other like this — it wouldn’t happen in any other industry.”

Percy Meredith, who has farmed for 50 years, just shrugged when I asked him what he thought of the sacrifice. “It’s all just part of the farming community, I guess,” he said.

Pitstick’s father is a farmer, as are three of his brothers. Another brother and two sisters still have close agricultural ties in the work they do.

“Sometimes you might wonder why we (farmers) do what we do,” Pitstick said. He gestured broadly, embracing with a sweep of his hand the 100 farmers and other volunteers who contributed to the success of the day. “This is why,” he said.

Curt came to watch, staying as long as Beth allowed. His immune system is weak, and speaking is painful. But Beth said nothing could have kept Curt from coming and expressing his gratitude.

“I can’t tell you what this means to us,” Beth said. “It’s hard of course because more than anything Curt would rather be out there doing it himself. But God has blessed us with angels for friends. All this — it’s overwhelming.”

•Contact Emily Jennings by e-mail at emilyjennings@mchsi.com.