Alma Jaren Tolman-Why one finger was shorter than the others

Contributed By: BenBaker · 13 August 2015

Originally posted on Facebook in the Alma Jaren & Myrtle Harriet Priest Tolman Family group. Edited by grandson, Ben Baker

From son, Jaren Tolman:

I will give you the abbreviated version. Not sure how old I was, 6 or 7 or there abouts (later indicated he was probably closer to 9 or 10). It was the fall of the year and I was in a grain field “helping” dad harvest the grain. He had sent me off a little way from the combine to do something, I do not remember what it was. Suddenly he yelled, loudly, for me to go back to the combine. Never had heard my father vocalize that loudly or in such urgency. Thought I had done something wrong, but when I got back to the combine, he was holding his right hand with his left. I had to help him down from the equipment and over to the Model A Ford car that we had rode in to the field. He told me that I had to drive home. It was about a mile, maybe a little less. Had to go up a small hill get out of the field to the road home. When we got home, mom took dad to the hospital. Dads gloves were left home. We kids found the fleshy end of dad pointy finger of his right hand in the glove. Apparently it had been pulled off the bone. we kids had a funeral for the finger while mom and dad were at the hospital.

<Later comment>

The farming machinery of that day had lots of open belts and chains. Not sure what dad was doing, but somehow his glove was caught by a rapidly moving chain and pulled over one of the cog wheels that the chain ran on. The force of the encounter ripped the end of the finger off.

From daughter, Eilene Tolman Stevens:
More to that story is that Uncle Jaren drove the Model A over a very, narrow bridge over the canal to get home. Once he arrived close to the house he went by, came back, went by, came back, sorta, as he did not know how to drive obviously. The funeral for the finger included us burying it under the plum tree. We kids always thought that is why the plum tree did so well with the fruit on it. Also, Grandma Myrtle Tolman crocheted Grandpa a kind of stocking thing to wear on his “stubby” as it would get so cold in the winter when he was carrying mail.

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