“Thomas H. Klumpp liked to work and dream. The founder of what was to become Dashwood Industries Limited, Thomas had already tried his hand at working in a brickyard, farming, fire fighting, barbering, running a bakeshop and confectionary, contract painting and threshing before he bought his first planing mill in 1928 at the age of 39.

Born of German parents in 1881 in the small Village of Crediton in southwestern Ontario, Thomas started working for local farmers when he was fourteen years old. His first job was on the farm of Gottleib Wein. Next year it was on the farm of Nelson Kestle. Soon Thomas found work at the Crediton tile yards of Conrad Kuhn for $14 a month, not including board. To supplement his income he learned barbering at nights from Mr. Sam Buck. In the winter he worked for a $1 a day as a fireman at Fred Wuerth’s flax mill. he did the same thing another winter for the Sutherland-Innis Company’s stave mill at Exeter.

In 1908 Thomas moved five and one half miles north to the Village of Dashwood where he used his mechanical bent and farming experience to get a job as a thresher for Charles Guenther. ‘I can remember him telling me that when he got to Dashwood the only thing that he owned was a bicycle’, Maurice Klumpp, Thomas’ oldest son and now Chairman of the Board of Dashwood Industries Ltd. said.

(below) left to right: Howard “Boots” Klumpp; Thomas H. Klumpp (seated); Maurice Klumpp. Click on image for larger version.

But the elder Klumpp’s ambition and pride soon paid dividends. Two months after being hired by Guenther, Thomas bought his boss out and was in the threshing business. Charlie Guenther later worked as Thomas Klumpp’s head engineer for many years. […] The following year Thomas bought his first mobile steam engine from George White & Sons in London. He used it to pull his threshing machine, which previously had been pulled by horses. […] When steam replaced horsepower around the turn of the century, threshing became even more of a seasonal occupation. Horses could go over snow where mobile steam engines couldn’t and so Thomas had no income save for the months of August to December. He would repair his machines in the off season, but that didn’t pay all the bills.

(below) Threshing equipment owned by Thomas Klumpp. Click on image for larger version.

Therefore, Thomas bought the barbershop of Joseph Wambold at Dashwood and cut hair in the off season and at night during the threshing season. Later he sold the shop to Wesley Wolfe. Thomas also bought Fred Dearing’s bakeshop and confectionery store in Dashwood and worked there with his wife, the former Amelia Ehlers of Stephen Township, whom he had married in 1909. The Klumpp’s operated the bake-shop confectionery for four years before selling out to Fred White.

[…] After leaving barbering and the bakery and confectionery business, Thomas Klumpp took to contract painting when he wasn’t threshing. He and a few of the men who worked for him kept busy after the harvest by securing painting contracts for buildings in the Dashwood area. But in 1928 Thomas Klumpp set the final course that was to occupy the rest of his life. For $1,600 he bought George Kellerman’s planing mill and Dashwood Planing Mill, the forerunner of today’s Dashwood Industries Ltd., was born.”

extracted from “A Look At Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Our First Millennium”, published by Dashwood Industries Limited; 1978