Dad died next to his Farmall M

My Dad passed away this past November 4. He was approaching 89 years of age, and though he had some health problems in his later years(a heart bypass in 1992), he was in pretty good shape for a man his age. His mind was alert and he could still do things around the farm. In these last years, when he couldn't do much lifting or running after livestock, he still enjoyed doing discing and planting in the spring, and hauling grain to town in the fall with his trusty M tractor.

Dad bought the M in 1950, and with an H Farmall these were the only tractors we ever had. Over the years, the M and H were busy pulling plows, planters, wagons, feeding countless head of cattle, in blizzards and summer heat, mud and snow, rainstorms and droughts. Each of us kids learned farming with those two tractors. We only farmed 160 acres, and always had livestock (we milked cows until just lately). Dad never had alot of money, but he still managed to provide decently for us five kids (four boys and a girl), and build Mom a new home in 1970. Dad was the nicest man you ever knew, he was a great father to us kids. He always had a trace of a German accent (we used to tease him that he sounded a lot like Lawrence Welk). He was especially proud that all of his kids got college educations. As the years passed, with the exception of myself, my other brothers and sister got married and moved away. Mom passed away in 1986, but I stayed here and continued to help Dad with the farm.

Dad never believed in the big farms and big farming (his favorite saying about the big farmers was: "they're just working for machinery"). He always remembered the Depression, and never believed in spending money just to have things. In these last years, we wanted to buy him a new pickup, but he didn't want us to. He was perfectly happy driving his old Ford F100 to town.

I have a job, so I had to do much of the combining last fall in the evenings. It was great to have Dad around, because in the daytime while I was at my job he would haul in the loads I had combined the night before into town for me.
I had just combined the last two loads, and when I came home that evening, Dad said that he would take them in the next morning. I told him he didn't have to, that I could do it the next day, but he really wanted to. The weather was warm and fair, so I didn't worry too much about him doing it.

The next day I went to work in the morning, and the last thing I saw before I drove out was Dad, dressed in his overalls and wearing his favorite cap, getting on the M and starting it up. Later that morning, I got a call at work that something had happened to my Dad and I needed to get home right away.

Dad had taken the load to town (only about a mile away). He had come back home with the empty load, and parked the tractor in the driveway and walked a short distance across the lane to get the mail. When he was almost back to the tractor, he collapsed. Apparently his heart just quit on him. Our neighbor-farmer of 60 years found him lying on the ground next to the still-running M.

Later that day, after the undertaker had taken Dad away, I walked over the farm and fields that Dad had know so well. It was a totally beautiful fall day, and I just couldn't believe my Dad was gone.

In these past few months, the others in the family have been urging me to leave the farm. "How can you care to be there by yourself, now that Dad and Mom are both gone?" But no way. I am going to be taking the M out this Spring one more time, just as my Dad did for 62 years on this place, and disk and plant and cultivate and harvest; using the farming skills my Dad taught me and the same tractor that I learned it with, and the tractor that (literally)my Dad drove until the day he died. And although I'll have a big lump in my throat and a tear in my eye, I'll be happy remembering my Dad as I drive that Farmall M.

Perhaps you can pass this legacy on to your own children some day.

Great story. All too soon our folks are gone. My dad was a printer, not a farmer, but he built his house in dairy country, so I spent my youth on dairy farms. I have several tractors, but the greatest reminder of pop is the model A Ford my brother has, that my father and I restored about 1960. I went up to visit my brother at christmas, and sat in the car, blocked in the garage with 5 feet of snow outside the door, and reminised about driving it to high school in the 60s. Pops died in 81, but we still think of him, and talk about him. Anybody interested in the story can read about it on my web site, under the "pop's model A" button.
This photo shows pops and ma and my brother who now owns the car.

• Bill's Place in the Country

My farm was homesteaded by my Grandfather and is a North Dakota Centennial Farm. It makes me sad I am the last of his descendants that cling to the land, and love the life where the seasons are measured by the farm work at hand! There are no livestock on the farm since my Dad could no longer care for them 20 or 25 years ago. I miss their company when I'm at the farm, but at this time I am not able to be there enough to care for them. My Dad was kinduva nuisance in his later years, as worsening senility made him more child-like, and even then he tidied up around the farmstead, picking up any stray can, or bit of wind-blown paper that happened to be around the yard. The gnarled, wrinkled hands that wrestled draft horses in his younger years, and early tractors with no power steering, and later, tractors with air conditioned cabs, could not be still, even if it meant moving needed parts in the shop, with no rhyme or reason, some to places I still have not stumbled upon, and he's been off the farm for over 8 years, and dead for nearly 4! Then there was the crooked index finger, stepped on by a sow in the 50's, while he was helping her give birth! No workman's comp, or doctor bills for that accident! His hearing was very poor for many years, damaged, for the most part in the 50's, operating a Massey 55 diesel with a straight pipe. Man, the stories the guys of that era could tell, if we had only listened more, and recorded more on video tape for our kids to get a glimpse of Grandpa in action! Think of growing up with no electric light or power on the farm, and going to what we have now, in one generation! For us who are middle aged, I wonder what good changes we will see in our remaining years, to offset the decline of the family farm, the family unit itself, and Small Town America in general!

Oh, well, enough rambling!

Geez, Dad, I miss ya!

I have pretty much neglected the M until just recently. I just completed some repairs and updates to the old tractor (converted to 12 volt, put the belly pump to use for the first time, added a 3 point hitch, new rear rims and tires, new gauges, steering wheel, seat, changed all fluids, etc.

I probably could have sold the tractor and bought one that would fit my needs, but this way I have a functional tractor with 3 point that also has great sentimental value.

I was going to repaint, but now I'm not sure. Maybe I'll just leave it looking like the tractor it has become after many years of hard work.

If you'd like to see a pic of it before I worked on it, it's posted in the Farmall photo gallery as "1947 Farmall M - Marv G."

Marv Gustafson