Norma's Windmill - Info

Sarah Morton had driven the road many times before. She had often noticed a majestic windmill standing in a pasture on her daily route. But on this day, as she drove down 148th street in eastern Lancaster County, it was different.

Norma Hagaman also had a special fondness for the windmill. It reminded her of her youth, when her grandparents lived on the farmstead. It was this farmstead that Sarah Morton had been driving by every day.

Norma's family no longer lived on the farmstead -- in fact it was National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore who lived there now, but that's another story. She and her husband Wayne really wanted to preserve the windmill. In 1999, they went to the trouble to dismantle it piece by piece. What they were going to do after that, they didn't really know.

One day Sarah decided to stop for a closer look at the windmill she had grown to admire so much. The Hagaman's told Sarah they wanted to save the windmill, maybe restore it, and even move it to their home in Bennet. But they didn't know how to go about getting that done. It must have been serendipity. Sarah and her husband Todd had recently acquired Morton's Windmill Works from its retiring owner. Their business does exactly what the Hagamans needed.

Todd repairs some windmills on site, right there in the pasture, enjoying the great outdoors and all that Nebraska has to offer. He likes the outdoors and being his own boss. Some windmills need more serious attention and are taken back to his shop. The work they require can be exacting and time consuming, but they have to be right. Not too many lopsided windmills turn very well.

Many windmills Todd repairs are the real thing, doing real work, pumping water for some farmer's cattle to drink. Others are of the decorative variety that acreage owners acquire because they like the way they look. Some have metal wheels. And some have ten-foot wooden wheels, like the one that now proudly, and majestically, turns at the Hagaman's home in Bennet.