The New President Of The LDS Church Has A Vintage Bicycle Collection

[Squiggle Dog]

The LDS Church has a new prophet--Russell M. Nelson, a 93-year-old former heart surgeon who helped develop the artificial lung and performed the first successful open-heart surgery. 20 years ago when I was a child, I met him as he had a summer home on the street behind our house in Midway, Utah. He had quite the vintage bicycle collection and I remember his grandchildren stopping by our house while we were having a yard sale. One of them was riding a very nice 1910s-20s Iver-Johnson and I cringed as I watched them drop it against the curb and dent the nickle-plated fork.

Fascinated, I followed them back to where they came and talked to the owner of all the bicycles, who I had no idea was an apostle at the time. I asked him if I could borrow one of the bicycles, a Schwinn Twinn tandem. He was nice and trusted me, a total stranger, to borrow it for the day.

From then on, we worked out a deal that I could borrow any of his bicycles except for one as long as his grandchildren weren't using it, and I offered to repair them for free in exchange for borrowing them. He had a quadcycle, a Town & Country trike, and some Schwinn middleweights and musclebikes.

Eventually I got to borrow the one bicycle that was off limits--the Iver-Johnson. It looks identical to the one in the picture--it had the same paint scheme, the nickle-plated fork, the racer handlebars that were flipped upside-down, the flashlight in a holder, and the tires with the stripe on the side. The only difference is that his had a drop stand, a seat with long springs on it, and instead of a toolbag, it had a license plate from 1937--but the bicycle was obviously much older than that and he probably got it secondhand as he was a child during the Great Depression.

I thought this would be a fun story from my childhood to share. Sometimes it's a smaller world than we think and it's interesting how peoples' lives connect.

 

[Intense One]

Seemed like he liked you...maybe you'll be mentioned in a will at some point! Thanks for sharing your awesome memory event!

 

[bike]

Riding on Sunshine!

 

[Squiggle Dog]

Seemed like he liked you...maybe you'll be mentioned in a will at some point! Thanks for sharing your awesome memory event!

With 116 grandchildren, I find it unlikely, but it was a fun experience, anyway--and really neat to see the bicycles being enjoyed by younger generations rather than gathering dust. There was another local gentleman who had a Schwinn Cycletruck that he used to ride around. One day I asked him if he would sell it, and he said, "No, this bicycle is very special to me, but I'll tell you what, I'll add you in my will." He ended up passing away, and his relatives contacted me and said that I could take the bicycle. So, I went to the house to pick it up (he always left it parked on the side of the garage), and the bike was gone. I asked the neighbor if she knew what had happened to it. She told me that she took it upon herself to give it to the neighbors down the road.

So, I went to those neighbors (whom I knew--I knew almost everyone in the town), and they said, "Nope, it's ours now." I was really disappointed. These same neighbors had a 1940s Schwinn The World B-6 with springer fork and front wheel brake that I had been trying to buy, but it was the father's childhood bike, so I'm glad they valued it enough to keep it in the family. I think it's a shame when families don't want to keep heirlooms like that. My consolation prize was a smashed-up radio that was covered in snow on the property. I took it home, used body filler and glue to repair the housing, painted it, and plugged it in to discover that it worked (that same radio is pictured below).

Speaking of Cycletrucks, our post office had a pre-war Cycletruck on display at the counter. My friend's postal worker father said he used to use it when he worked for the post office as a boy.

On a related note, the town of Midway, Utah was full of Schwinn Twinn tandems--it seemed that every block had one. Russell M. Nelson's summer home behind my house had a white one, a house a block away had a gold one, another house a block away had a blue one, a guy a few blocks away had a yellow one he had me repair, I found a chainguard from a red one on the side of the road by my house, so I tied it to the fence hoping the owners would see it, but no one claimed it, so I sold it to a guy who needed one. I bought a nice green one locally and as far as I know, my parents still have it.

 

[bikemonkey]

Both of your stories were much appreciated - thanks for taking the time to post those memories. I like the personal stories which add another dimension to what we are doing here and you get it. Also, LDS folks I have met were sincerely nice people...

 

[Squiggle Dog]

I just found something really neat--an article which mentions what I assume is the Iver-Johnson bicycle:

I also found a picture of him on a tricycle:

I forgot to mention that he had a really neat kids tricycle at his summer home, but it's not the one in the picture--it had large wheels and a huge skirted front fender with louvers on it--it had really cool art deco styling and possibly a headlight on it. It looked like this one:

I think it would be really neat if a photograph of him as a youth on the Iver-Johnson surfaced. I really like seeing old photographs of people with the bicycle that they've kept into adulthood.

 

[Rivnut]

The LDS Church has a new prophet--Russell M. Nelson, a 93-year-old former heart surgeon who helped develop the artificial lung and performed the first successful open-heart surgery. 20 years ago when I was a child, I met him as he had a summer home on the street behind our house in Midway, Utah. He had quite the vintage bicycle collection and I remember his grandchildren stopping by our house while we were having a yard sale. One of them was riding a very nice 1910s-20s Iver-Johnson and I cringed as I watched them drop it against the curb and dent the nickle-plated fork.


View attachment 739462

HUffington Post 07/09/2012 05:24 pm ET Updated Jul 10, 2017
Daniel Hale Williams Performed Nation’s Second Open-Heart Surgery In Chicago 119 Years Ago

Which means that this open heart surgery took place in 1893.

 

[Squiggle Dog]

Interesting. Numerous articles, including Wikipedia, state that Russell M. Nelson was the first person to perform a successful open-heart surgery on a human being, in 1951 (however, his first attempt was done in 1951, and the first success was in 1955). Before then, the heart-lung bypass machine (which he helped develop) did not exist, and so open-heart surgery was deemed too risky as a general practice. It looks like Daniel Hale Williams beat him to it in 1893, though, as a last-minute effort to save a man's life--and was fortunately successful due to his high skill.

It looks like an example of overlooked history. Maybe a more accurate assessment would be that Russell M. Nelson was the first person to perform successful open-heart surgery using newly developed methods which made it feasible as a general practice.