Fountain City couple's vast array of classic cars, pedal cars, road art to be auctioned off

Jun. 17—FOUNTAIN CITY — Elmer Duellman always loved cars.

By age 18, he already had cycled through 42 vehicles that he owned, drove, fixed up and then sold before moving on to the next one.

Elmer's love of cars was so deep that eventually he couldn't bear to part with the models he acquired. So he started collecting — a passion he pursued for 60 years.

By the time of his death in 2019 at age 79, Elmer had amassed a collection of more than 100 classic cars, 700 pedal cars and hundreds of bicycles, motorcycles and snowmobiles. On top of that he acquired an estimated 20,000 vintage toys and walls full of road art and memorabilia.

In 1994, he and his wife, Bernadette, opened Elmer's Auto and Toy Museum to house the massive collection at a 90-acre plot they owned on top of a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. The site near Fountain City now includes the family home as well as five large buildings stuffed to the rafters with Elmer's items.

Twenty-eight years later, the couple's six children — Melissa Baker, Amanda McKitty and Les, Rick, Brad and Eric Duellman — have decided it's time to share Elmer's prized collection with the world.

Most of the collection will be offered by auction Sept. 14 to 17. Officials from Mecum Auctions, the world's largest classic and collector car auction company, expect the event to attract collectors, both in-person and online, from around the globe.

"Elmer loved anything with wheels on it," said Brad Duellman, the third-oldest of the couple's children.

The collecting began with full-size cars, progressed to pedal cars and motorcycles, and then finally reached tiny toys — all of which are displayed on multiple levels of shelves in roughly 75,000 square feet of museum buildings.

Though it's hard to know for sure, Mecon Auctions consignment agent Gus Kozarzewski said Elmer's pedal car collection — started in 1971 with a 1905 chain-driven, wooden model — is believed to be one of the largest, if not the largest, in the world.

"Right now we're thinking he holds the title unless someone else comes forward and claims otherwise," Kozarzewski said.

In 2003, the Duellmans donated a circa-1953 Kidillac pedal car to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to be featured in a display called "America on the Move" in the National Museum of American History.

The scale of the collection gives a hint as to the passion — bordering on addiction, Brad acknowledged — that Elmer brought to his hobby.

"He never did anything halfway. He did it full on," Brad said, noting with amazement that his father seemingly knew where every item was kept and the story behind it. "The pictures don't do it justice because there's just so much. It's mind-boggling."

Even Brad, who helped his dad with the collection for decades, frequently runs across never-before-seen items when he enters one of the museum buildings.

It's impossible to determine the collection's value because of its sheer size, Kozarzewski said, adding, "We're going through it and discovering treasures all the time."

Old-school collector

Remarkably, Brad pointed out, Elmer did all of his collecting without the aid of the internet. He would hear about items through word of mouth and from connections across the country, including "American Pickers" star Mike Wolfe, who Elmer called a friend long before the popular A&E reality TV show premiered in 2010. Elmer, who also excelled on the local racing circuit in his younger days, was a featured expert on the show several times.

"Dad would jump at the chance to buy stuff that was original. He'd take a 15-hour trip across the country at the drop of a pin and be back for breakfast," Brad marveled.

A legendary family story sheds light on Elmer's love of automobiles and how the Duellmans came to have a 1929 Ford Model A in their living room.

As the story goes, Elmer initially hid the car after acquiring it to avoid getting scolded for buying something that wasn't in the family budget at the time. But when Bernadette first spotted the car, she exclaimed, "That Model A is nice enough to put in the house!"

A few years later when the Duellmans built an addition on their house, Elmer reinforced the floors and added a false wall that permitted the car to be driven right into the living room, parked next to the fireplace mantel and driven back out when the couple wanted to take it for a spin.

"He held her to her word," Brad said with a chuckle about the car that has been parked in the living room since the 1970s.

Sharing the love

The decision to part with much of the collection — many of the toys will be sold at a later date because the family needs to auction off the larger items just to access many of the smaller ones — is bittersweet for the family.

"It was dad's wishes for us to sell the collection," Brad said, noting that his mother has given her approval and understands that maintaining the collection and operating the museum demands a huge time commitment from the couple's adult children. "Elmer loved to share, and this is how you do the next step."

Still, coming to that conclusion doesn't make it easy to carry out.

"Every piece here is part of Elmer and Bernadette. Our emotions are all over the board," Brad said of his siblings. "But you have to embrace it. Elmer was a collector of love, and now he's spreading that love around."

Elmer was self-employed and lived in Fountain City all his life and, with Bernadette at his side, ran a salvage yard, auto sales and service operation, bargain shop, gas station, wrecker service and race track over the years in addition to the museum.

"This was not all just an Elmer deal. It was both of them," Brad said. "It takes two."

In the three months before the auction, Brad reminded Midwest residents that this summer marks the last chance they have to see Elmer's pieces of history intact before the collection itself becomes history. The museum will be open to the public for 18 more days, beginning this Saturday and Sunday.

One item that won't be for sale in the auction is the antique black pickup with the words "Elmer's Auto and Toy Museum" printed in white on the doors. The vehicle was used to transport Elmer's coffin to his final resting place.

"We're keeping the '32 Ford museum truck," Brad said. "It was my dad's last ride, and eventually it will be my mom's last ride."

It will be a fitting final road trip on what has been a remarkable shared journey.