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Historic family buckboard takes great-great-grandson full circle
McCOOK, Neb. -- In a buckboard wagon, Tom Conroy's great-great-grandparents traveled from a seaport in Louisiana to Wisconsin, then to Exeter, Nebraska, and on to Centerpoint, Nebraska, 20 miles north of McCook.
Many years later, on Monday, the same buckboard, rebuilt by family, carried Tom to his final resting place in Calvary Cemetery in McCook.
Tom was born in McCook in 1928, and grew up to farm with the family near Centerpoint and then on a farm southwest of McCook, growing potatoes for Weaver and Kitty Clover potato chip companies.
Tom and his wife, Bertilla, "Bert", moved their family into McCook in 1966, where Tom worked as a welder for Amen Construction and as a plant engineer at Electric Hose and Rubber (Dayco). The family was involved in worship and activities at St. Patrick's Catholic Church and the seven kids in school and sports.
Tom was well-known in town, a big bear-sized guy, always friendly, always optimistic, always smiling. His woodworking skills were legendary. Bert was famous, too, for her smile, as well as her quilts. It seemed "everyone" grew up with, went to school with or played ball with one or more of the seven Conroy kids.
Bert and Tom were caretakers for St. Patrick's Calvary Cemetery in McCook for more than 45 years.
When Tom died March 28, his son, Phillip, and his grandson, Kyle, masterminded the renovation of the old family buckboard that Tom had saved to rebuild one day, and finished the casket that Tom had started for himself. Tom had also crafted Bert's casket, as well as many cases for American flags for veterans. He also fashioned caskets for the Marian Sisters, a woman's order of the Catholic Church.
Kyle said the old buckboard had weathered away to nothing more than the running gear, "the old axles and springs, and some scraps of wood." After Tom died, Kyle and his dad fashioned all the wood pieces for the running gear and for the new box, and found new steel wheels to replace wooden-spoked wheels beyond restoration.
Phillip said there were some pieces of the buckboard that, until they replaced or repaired them, they didn't know how they worked. It made him wonder, he said, how the travelers took care of their ride.
"Did they regrease the axles every 100 miles ... every three days?" he said. Phillip's uncle Don (Don Hickert) has the tub in which they soaked the wheels in linseed oil, Phillip said.
Kyle and Phillip fixed a new trailer hitch to the wagon's tongue, so that it could be pulled by Kyle's pickup in Tom's funeral procession. It's a Chevy pickup. "We couldn't have pulled the wagon with anything but a Chevy," Kyle smiled. "It's what Grandpa always drove."
Kyle said the wagon project was a distraction from the grief of losing his grandfather. "I tried not to think about anything," Kyle said. "This was my distraction ... "
Kyle said that his grandpa had wanted to rebuild the wagon. "It was something Grandpa wanted to do. He had built the steam box to build the (wooden) wheels." He paused, " ... he never got around to it."
On Monday morning, Tom's family followed the buckboard as it carried Tom's body and casket to Calvary Cemetery in McCook.
What does the family plan now for the buckboard? Kyle originally said they would chain it to a tree in the front yard of Monica's house on South Highway 83 in McCook.
Monica is Tom and Bert's second daughter. Then he added, "Maybe we'll put it in a couple parades."
Kyle paused a bit and said thoughtfully, "Grandpa never did anything without a purpose to it. If something had wheels on it, it was gonna roll."