Family auctions off grandmother‘s collection of over 250 sewing machines: ’Another way to say goodbye'

SYRACUSE, Neb. ( KOLN /Gray News) - In a 4-H building in Syracuse, Nebraska, over 250 sewing machines were up for sale at an auction.

They were collected by Bette Boellstorff, a seamstress, mother and grandmother.

"Mom had a soft spot for sewing machines," Carrie Knapp, Bette Boellstorff's daughter, said. "When she was growing up, she came from this family that knew how to make do out of nothing. So, she started off making her own clothes and she could see in each sewing machine, the woman and her family."

After picking out pieces that were meaningful to them, the family held a three-day auction, starting on Nov. 1. They saw it as a way to celebrate Bette Boellstorff's impressive collection and her legacy.

"We were married for 52 years," Daniel Boellstorff, Bette Boellstorff's husband, said. "We went together four years before that and I lost her 12 years ago."

Daniel Boellstorff said his wife preferred sewing machines over jewelry.

"I'd pay anything for one at the time," Daniel Boellstorff chuckled through tears. "She knew they were valuable and she liked to collect them. I'm interested to see what they'll bring today."

Sometimes, Bette Boellstorff would get machines as gifts or buy them herself at auctions. She even had a quilting house in Nemaha County; it was on the property that Daniel Boellstorff's ancestors homesteaded in 1868.

"She would have us sneaking them into the house," smiled Christopher Knapp, Bette Boellstorff's grandson. "We thought we had found them all and then we'd find one that she'd been using as a nightstand."

Twelve years after her death, Bette Boellstorff left behind her collection of fabric, cups, accessories and hundreds of sewing machines.

To get the sewing machines to good homes, the family trusted a fifth-generation auctioneer from northwestern Missouri named Liz Hunt.

Within six hours on the first day of the auction, Hunt said the collection already had around 12,000 hits on her Hunt Auctions & Land website.

"It's truly a marvel. It has to be a Guinness World Record. It has to be," Hunt, who was named top auctioneering colonel in 2024, said. "The attention that this has drawn has been astronomical. I've had phone calls from Denmark, London, Texas."

Bette Boellstorff had toy machines, hand cranks, pedals, a sock loom, a spinning wheel, sewing machines that folded into desks and so many more items.

Carrie Knapp said her mother really enjoyed her Singer Futura sewing machine.

To get ready for the auction, Bette Boellstorff's family spent months cleaning the antique and vintage machines, careful not to damage the designs.

"The different types of names that they give the patterns date the machine," Hunt said. "So, that's been helpful as we've tried to find out how old some of these are."

Carrie Knapp said they don't know the dates on all of the items and that information will be up to the buyers to look up by serial numbers. She also said her mother had "too many to count."

Some models are as new as the 2000s and others might date back to the late 1800s, but the Nemaha County family hopes the machines can be used to make new memories.

"It's kind of another way to say goodbye, which can be hard, but we're hoping by doing this, they can find homes that will inspire other people the same way they inspired her," Christopher Knapp said.

At the end of the auction, Carrie Knapp posted a photo of a sweet little girl playing with one of her mother's favorite toy sewing machines.

"Mom would have loved seeing this," Carrie Knapp said in her post. "Here's to new beginnings!"