By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
DECATUR - Ribs the size of ax handles are laid out on a blue tarp in Tom Willbrandt's front room.
While cleaning a pond last fall on his property in Cass County's Volinia Township, the former muck farmer discovered what he believes to be wooly mammoth bones.
Tom Goodwin of Andrews University, in a Feb. 2 talk at The Museum at Southwestern Michigan College, said the remains of one wooly mammoth have been found in Cass County.
The elephant-like creature was a grazer.
Mastodons, more abundant in Michigan, were browsers.
Andrews' museum displays the most complete mammoth ever found in Michigan - in a pond on the Wes Prillwitz farm in the 1960s.
Willbrandt, a native of Muskegon, came to Decatur 32 years ago to raise celery and onions he sold to Campbell's for soup and related products, such as Prego spaghetti sauce and V-8 juice.
Willbrandt collects Campbell's memorabilia, including toy trucks, an airplane, a clock and plates.
His other passion is tractors, including the children's pedal type.
His collection fills three rooms of his home. He even has a collection of sheep shears he used to top onions. Today the muck farm produces mint.
Willbrandt said the pond cleaning began last October, with the first few bones uncovered about Nov. 10, 2004.