Category Archives: Margaret I. McDunn Tillotson

Remodeling in Bruno, Nebr. finds Van Ness on the job for Nye & Jenks

by baggyparagraphs

The Great Depression forced many changes in the early 1930s. For one, the Nye & Jenks Grain Co. decided to get out of the lumber business at its Bruno, Nebr. location. To that end, in April of 1934, men were tearing down the lumber sheds at the company’s location in that little Butler County burg. The plan was to use the lumber on hand, along with some hauled to Bruno from Cedar Bluffs–which lay 25 miles distant in Saunders County–to put up a storage annex.

Nye & Jenks was an Omaha company, and a cursory search of archived newspapers suggests Van Ness Construction Co. was their preferred contractor. There was more activity at other eastern Nebraska locations such as Fremont, Wahoo, Cedar Bluffs, and Brainard.

Van Ness, of course, employed Charles H. Tillotson and his son, Reginald O. Tillotson. In 1934, Reginald was around 26 years old, newly married to Margaret I. McDunn, but not yet a father. Their first son, Charles J. Tillotson, was born in 1935.

After her 1925 graduation from Wayne State College, Margaret had taught in Lynch, Nebr. for a time, and coincidentally Nye & Jenks appears to have had an elevator there, too.

Charles H. Tillotson died in 1938. Reginald passed away in 1960, and Margaret in 1995. Charles J. died in February 2026.

Reginald’s notes in a photo album retrieved from family archives indicate the men seen above are Dean Essex, R.O. Tillotson, Rupert Hammonds, Tony Proskovec, and C.H. Tillotson. We don’t think the listing proceeds from left to right, though, and are unable to say just who is who. We think R.O. and C.H Tillotson are two of the three wearing the working garb. As for the others, we couldn’t learn anything that would pin down their identities.

Patches of snow on the ground suggest a late-winter or early spring date for the photo. The men are dressed for a chilly day, although the sunny moment was somewhat balmy.

The Peoples Banner, a weekly newspaper published in Butler County, gave this update on June 21 (using one of the many variant spellings for Nye & Jenks Grain Co.:

The work of re-modeling the Nye, Jenks & Co. elevator in Bruno has been completed. The elevator now has a capacity of 30,000 bushels. The company has discontinued the lumber business and will handle grain and coal from now on.

At the same time, Anton Proskovec left Bruno to work at the Nye & Jenks elevator in Funk, Nebr., a town 165 miles to the southwest. It was a seven-week assignment, though, as the Peoples Banner reported him back on Aug. 9.

Ed Dvorak, who has been manager of the Nye, Jenks & Co. grain elevator for a number of months [since the previous August], left Saturday for his home at Howells [40 miles due north]. V.A. Proskovec will have charge of the business.”

Our insertions in the above passage are in brackets.

We think V.A. Proskovec and Anton Proskovec are the same person, and that would also include the Tony Proskovec of the photo.

An interesting, earlier note from the Brainard Clipper, the paper in the town just south of Bruno, intimates just how tough the times were indeed. The report of March 9, 1933 says:

The Farmers Elevator are not buying any grain, while due to arrangements made in the company’s head offices, the Nye & Jenks Grain Co. are able to buy up to $25 worth of grain from any one farmer, paying for it in the Co’s scrip. This scrip is made payable on or before April 1, and is acceptable by many of the wholesale houses thereby making it practical for merchants to accept it in trade. The scrip is issued in amounts of $5 or less. 

We leave the reader to discern the full implications.

It would be just four years before Tillotson Construction Co. was formed and turned its attention to large elevators made of reinforced concrete.

Away from the office, Reginald and Mary Tillotson rode horseback amid the piñons

by baggyparagraphs

Laying off from work in their Omaha office, Reginald Tillotson and his sister Mary Tillotson knew how to play, too. Here we see them on horseback, going down a cliffside with three others who cannot be identified. Reginald wore the white hat and ample chaps, Mary flourished the white tie. It was an adventure that Reginald’s wife Margaret would never have attempted. The Tillotsons owned a New Mexico ranch, so we guess this trail’s location is nearby. We’re also guessing the ponies knew just where to stop for the photo, and that’s not only because of the way they’re lined up. Note the marker that’s jabbing into the center of the picture. Lettering stenciled on the arm says “HANDS OFF.” We welcome guesses about it.

Rich lode of archival material means Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators will grow

by baggyparagraphs

By Ronald Ahrens

Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators is thrilled to report wonderful news. A benefactor has sent us 36 pounds of records salvaged from the Tillotson homestead north of Omaha. The carton includes five-dozen 8×10 black-and-white photos, most of them nice aerial shots, and many from locations that are new to us. Really? We built a warehouse for Peet’s Feeds in Council Bluffs? Along with all this, there are dozens of rolls of blueprints. It’s enough to keep us at the grindstone for a long time. 

As our more than 300 subscribers know, the Tillotson brothers—Reginald and Joe—founded Tillotson Construction Co. after the 1938 death of their father, Charles H. Tillotson. Reginald and Charles H. had spent years building wooden elevators for Van Ness Construction Co., but upon the death of Charles H., the sons launched their new company. They intended to use reinforced concrete and put up larger elevators.

Reginald and Joe split up in the late-1940s. Joe moved from Omaha to Denver and set up his own operation, but he died in a car accident not long afterwards. Tillotson Construction Co. flourished through the 1950s, building elevators from North Dakota to South Carolina. It also spawned offshoots such as Mayer-Osborn Construction Co., in which Kristen’s grandfather, William Osborn, was a partner. 

We need Carl Sagan to count all these blueprints.
Millet Ville, South Carolina

Kristen Cart and I launched Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators in November of 2011. When our careers would permit, we blogged away and have created more than 500 posts. This has resulted in a small but steady audience. The last three weeks have brought 1,005 pages views, which we think is pretty good. They come from all over the world. We weren’t posting very often in the last few years because we ran out of material. For us, it’s either site visits or archival records that lead to posts. Site visits are tough because I live near Palm Springs–not a single elevator!–and Kristen might not want me to say where but there are cowboys and elk and petroleum.

Things have changed as my Uncle Mike no longer lives in the Tillotson home, which Reginald built of reinforced concrete in 1952. Sorry to say, the home had become what authorities described as a “hoarder’s nightmare.” Pleased to say, the folks who purchased it in 2025 were diligent about salvaging the good stuff. Their shipment also includes my grandmother Margaret McDunn Tillotson’s copy of the Wayne Spizzerinktum yearbook from her Wayne State College Class of 1925. There is a St. Pius X Daily Missal, which is a puzzle because the Tillotsons went to St. Philip Neri; it was my family that went to St. Pius X but I don’t know anything about that book. And here’s Uncle Tim’s Fifth Armored “Victory” Division basic training almanac from his army service in Camp Chaffee, Ark. Inside it, inexplicably, I found a snapshot print of three nuns wearing all-white, and there’s a five-story parking garage in the background.

I called up the librarian at Wayne State, who says he’ll take the yearbook. The army almanac is another question. It has an elaborate, stamped leather cover but the volume sustained water damage. The missal is falling apart. Maybe I will return it to St. Pius X and hope it makes up for my poor performance as a student. 

Charles H. Tillotson

All this is a roundabout way of saying Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators is about to experience a growth spurt, although we’ll see if it’s akin to the growth spurt from wooden elevators that held 20,000 bushels to concrete ones that held 120,000 bushels. Timing is great because our careers are not the hindrance they used to be, so we will be able to work on new posts.

It’s great to have all this source material, but things are pretty lopsided in favor of Tillotson Construcdtion Co. We would love to get our hands on an equivalent archive from Mayer-Osborn and from J.H. Tillotson, Contractor. 

We invite first-time and casual readers to join with our subscribers and receive email notifications of new posts. All should watch this space for a renewed effort in telling the grain elevator story at the most basic level. It’s turned out a richer topic than we ever figured, and now comes this opportunity to groove on it and grow the blog.