Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

By J.R. Claeys

I've had some questions on the campaign trail about the origins of my last name and my family background. While not a familiar name to some, the Claeys name has a long and rich heritage. I'm largely German, however my surname is Belgian. My forebears came to the United States in the late 1800's, settling in Washington County, Kansas.

The Claeys family has deep roots in the agricultural community. My grandparents farmed in Blue Springs, Kansas until they lost their land during the Great Depression. My uncle, Ed Claeys, continues custom cutting across the central plains every summer from Texas to South Dakota. I grew up riding my uncle's combines. Interestingly, these machines once bore the family name.

The factory Claeys founded in 1909 is a New Holland plant today.

Pictured above is one of those combines, the Claeys M80. In the early 1900's Leon Claeys would ride to work past the fields every day on his way to his bicycle repair shop and see the hard work it took to bring in the harvest. Wanting to make that process more efficient, he built the first stationery thresher in his bicycle shop in 1906. He built his first factory in 1909 and began producing threshers, tractors and, in 1952, the first European self-propelled combines.

Leon Claeys built the best-selling combines in Europe in the 1960s before selling his company. Today the Claeys brand is owned by Case-New Holland (CNH). CNH continues to build implements at Leon's factory in Zedelgum, Belgium. To this day my Uncle Ed still runs Case combines.

The Claeys family has a tradition of an entreprenurial spirit. From construction to candies, the Claeys name is attached to dozens of businesses. While it's difficult to predict the future, the name does translate from the Greek meaning "Victory to the People."