C2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 24,1981
Claude Bradley, now retired, stands beside his
shop remembering the challenges of time past.
Bradley is
"cracker-jack"
BY JANE BRESEE
Staff Correspondent
The art of ' make-do’ or to make something useful out
of odds and ends has almost been forgotten m this age of
affluence Throw it away and buy new” has been the cry
£Ol the past few years
But not Claude Bradley of Bumpville. He is a prime
example of one who has a passion to make-do or fix
something over to make it work rather than to buy new
Now retired at the age of 76, Claude’s reputation as a
cracker-jack welder, carpenter, and inventor, is kept
alive by his son Karl who has taken up his father’s trade
Don’t write about me,” Karl told me emphatically,"
write about Pa He’s the one who has done it all”
I’ve always lived aiound heie, im the ninth cential
part of Bradford County not far from Rome) Claude told
me when I went to see him “I worked on the road for the
state for a few years when I was young, and then one day I
was going by this place and Harvey Smith came out and
wanted to sell me the farm I bought it and moved here in
1938”
c foies
mentor
-*>««***.►-
The Big V Snow Plow was one of the first m 40's It was first driven in Rome Township by
northeastern Pennsylvania and was made by Claude Arnold. The three passenger cab was also
Claude Bradley of Bradford County in the early fashioned by Bradley
"Iv .is .
hftfr- 'll'
Bradley built this “Doodlebug" around 1944.
Still operable, it was made from a 1928 Chevrolet
• We had only eight cows then and I bold them to buy
groceries I built myself a welder and learned how to use
it Later I bought a new one It came in at the railroad
depot in Athens on July 5, 1945 That was quite a day. I
hooked it behind my ’33 Ford and drove around the
country with it for 30 years fixing up machinery for folks
who called me ’’
‘My first shop was that a little barn you see standing up
beside the house,” Claude explained ’ 1 never had any
stove in the barn and 1 worked in it all winter It wasn’t too
bad once I got bundled up and the welder started"
In 1946 Claude built the cinder block shop where we
This mud-mobile was
made by Karl, Claude’s
son, years ago The front
is a ’62 Ford Falcon
Equipped with two
transmissions and a cat
track the vehicle is still
used today to haul wood
It will go anywhere, no
mud can stop it 1
■ 3 ''
car engine Note the fancy homemade hood and
fenders and the side-hill hitch on the drawbar.
were visiting, and later Karl added onto it In the last few
yeais he has equipped il with machmeiy such as an
elecli ic lathe which he Duill himseil
Betty, Karl’s wife, had brought several picture albums
dow'n to the garage to show me. As we looked through
them, ClSude chuckled as he recognized the picture of his
first garden tractor I made it out of a Maytag washer
motoi tastened onto wheel-baiiow wheels with bars
welded on for reinforcement It ran good, better than the
ones they make today I made several to sell, but it got
hard to find motoi s with a worm drive like the old Maytag
washers used to have”
One of the biggest jobs Claude tackled in the early 40’s
was making a big V snow plow. The Rome township
supervisors decided they needed a V snow-plow, Claude’s
story goes (This was in the days before such a machine
had been seen on roads anywhere) Our neighbor,
Claude Arnold came over, and we made it together. We
welded two 4 by 8 feel 18 gauge plates together and bent
them into a curve with a maul They rung just like a bell
when they were pounded,” Bradley remembered
The big V was tastened on the front of a regular farm
cat (tractor) and for the size of it, it did pretty good."
We also made a three passenger cab for the cat,
Claude, said, Later the slate got hold of the plow
somehow and they went all over with it plowing snow, in
Ulster, Camptown, and evei > w here"
One of the regular jobs Claude did during the war years
was to make the cabs toi the jeeps of the local
veterinarian The jeeps came new without cabs, and
Claude riveted on galvanized iron for the body Then he
lined it with plywood so it wouldn t sound tinny " I had
the windows cut up at Cohen s junk yard in East Athens,
he told me, and I set them in rubber something like
they re done today Doc Stoll ran those jeeps hard until
finally he bought Wagoneers already enclosed.”
Claude was a crack mechanic, too, and with his welding
ability made untold numbers of ‘ doodle-bugs” or
Puddle-jumpers” during the war. His inventions looked
like tractors, but the front end was made from an old car,
and the rear fiom something else Some had two Iran-
(I urn to Hage C 4)
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'Sr "S rSA”'"