This Independent Man Makes His Own Rope

Stillwater man, Gene Miller, has his childhood on the farm to thank for making him the man he’s become during the past 78 years.

Farm kids are known for their ingenuity and if they need something, they make it. In 2003 Gene saw something he wanted to make, so he found out where to send for the plans and a strong 200 hours later, he had his own scaled-down version of the famous Horseless Carriage which was an exact replica of Henry Ford’s 1908 tiller steered model car. The motor company made famous their catch-phrase that boasted their cars came in any color the customer wanted, as long as it was black.

In ‘full gear’ his version of the original vehicle will go 5 miles an hour, so he transports it where he wants to go, usually a farm show, and then unloads it and rides it around. The instructions included information on where he could get the parts and pieces he’d need, but it didn’t include a buggy top; by the time he put the main body together, it was nothing for him to add his own design for the buggy top.

Gene started the career he would be in for 35 years by apprenticing to be a pipe insulator at age 18. Through his time in the business, his job was to cover all kinds and sizes of pipes that held hot or cold water or steam or chilled water. Working in this capacity he worked hand-in-glove with other members of the building society; that’s where he picked up valuable skills simply by observing years of construction, brick laying, welding, you name it.

He also picked up years of asbestos fibers and paid for it by having it not only in his lungs but also his upper colon and prostate. On the plus side, this March 15 he will be celebrating being cancer free for 23 years.

Being unstoppable in the DIY department, Gene constructed 2 trailers when he needed them, one 18 feet, the other 24 feet, and he also built a 56 inch saw mill he used in order to do custom sawing while growing 5 acres of pumpkins and raising 55 ewes that produced, on average, 100 lambs each year.

Something else that caught his eye that looked like something he’d like to do was rope making. It was at one of the many threshing shows he attended that he watched 2 old guys demonstrating rope making.

“These guys were really slow, but it looked interesting, so 30 years ago I bought my first rope maker for $500. Just think what it would cost at today’s prices.”

Since he started rope making, he’s also started collecting vintage rope makers, some really primitive ones that were manufactured in 1901. One of the machines originated in Iowa and is marked Hawkeye, Iowa, but on the bottom of some of them are marked Spooner, Wisconsin. Evidently, the original creator of the hand-held machine sold the business to his son who owned a foundry in Spooner, hence the reason for the two names on the same rope maker.

Each year at yet another farm or steam show, he’d set up a table with multicolored rope coils 15 feet long for sale along with the handheld rope making devices that created the half inch poly rope from 12 original strands. This two-man operation included one person to crank the twister and another one to use the threader, which is the hand tool that creates the finished product as it threads the strands together. The finished rope is then taped, trimmed and the ends melted so it doesn’t come apart at either end.

The reason he decided on 15 feet as the ideal length of rope is that it can be cut into two pieces to make 2 standard jump ropes or left whole for a double jump rope. It’s also the perfect size for a lead rope or to tie things down.

He’s traveled the country demonstrating how clever the farmers were by creating their own devices to make something they needed; farmers usually making the one half inch ropes using 12 strands of sisal balling rope.

Thanks to his rope making, he’s visited farm shows and gas engine and tractor shows in Minnesota, North Dakota, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.

He’s retired from making rope, but he still loves the farm shows when he’s not completely remodeling his home or visiting his 4 kids, all who live within 35 miles of him.

He’s been a miracle since birth, the doctor being dead drunk and breaking his leg during his birth that put him in the hospital for the first 2 months of his life.

But nothing, not even cancer surgery and 2 knee replacements and 17 other assorted surgeries, has ever stopped him from doing the absolutely favorite thing he does three or four times a week, dancing.

No one else in his family was drawn to dancing, but as the oldest of 5 kids, it “looked like fun,” and so began his love of dancing the old time waltzes, polkas, fox trots and anything that had a particular dance pattern.

“When our generation dies, I’m afraid it will be the end of ‘formal dancing,” he says. “Even the musicians are getting old and no one is replacing them. But while it lasts, there are hundreds of seniors that fill the local clubs and bars that feature dancing from 1-4 in the afternoon on various days.

It was his wife that finally taught him the art. He was hired to do pipe covering in Rochester, Minnesota, for 6 weeks, but the job lasted 2 years and it was when he was visiting a piano bar in town that she walked in and changed his life.

They spent many a happy time dancing together and now that she’s gone, he still dances 3 or 4 times a week at various locations from Amery to Minnesota, joining 40 to 65 others at some places and from 60 to 120 people at the Minnesota haunts.

One of his favorite dance partners is Spooner’s Adelle Koel. She too is a veteran dancer and they’re at home at Dean and Sues, or the Moose Hall in Menomonie, or one of their favorite places in Amery, the Cricket Bar, Grill and Event Center. On Sunday’s, after 4 hours of dancing, there is a buffet available for only $6 per person and after all that exercise, the buffet line is a long one.

Even though he’s a 78 year old man with multiple surgeries to his credit, he’s out there dancing with other seniors, many in their eighties and nineties. One man is 97 and there’s a 99 year old women who dances every time she’s asked.

Gene says it’s a great social time and good exercise. You can’t argue that fact and he’s right, when they’re gone, so is an era of ambition and imagination and a generation of can-do people, and they will be missed. But meanwhile. . .