bankers/depression years story

During the depression, he told about the local elevator offering 2 cents a bushel for shell corn.
For earn corn, the elevator price was 2 cents less. They didn't want to say that they couldn't give you anything for the ear corn!

One day the banker come out to see my dad. He said "you haven't made the payments on your tractor and I am going to have to repossess it."
My dad told the banker that he understood and that
he wouldn't have any hard feelings. My dad also
said that if you take the tractor, I will never have an opportunity to pay for it. The banker thought about that for a while and said, I know you are an honest man and someday this dry cycle will end and things will get better. I also know that when this happens, you will pay for the tractor, so you just go ahead and keep it.

I remember D-day, 1944 when the local IH dealer
delivered a bright shiny H Farmall and took the old F-12 in trade. I was a little over 2 1/2
years old.

I thought I would share this story with you after
reading a post that John Deere didn't repossess any tractors during the depression. I would think that most tractor loans were handled through the banks back then, therefore JD would have been out of the loop.

You have to live through it to understand. I grew up in the '40-'50's, in an orphanage and later a foster home on a small dairy farm. My foster parents were in their 50's and products of the depression. I understand exactly why they are the way they are.

Joe

In the early '30's, both Granddad and his father-in-law (the barber) built new homes; Granddad had his built by a quality carpenter (and it's still a fine-looking house yet today), but his father-in-law hired "day laborers"...winos, bums, whoever he could get to work cheap...and the house showed it. There wasn't a level floor in it! And on top of that, to save money on lumber, he had the house framed up out of low-demand red beech lumber...ever try to drive a nail in red beech? Better drill a hole first! That was the house I grew up in, and as long as you were on the right side of the room, your marbles always came back to you!

Still, these folks faced a lot of hardships. My mom's family had just taken out a big loan on the farm right before prices crashed, and they struggled just to keep the farm. Sold eggs, milk, chickens, cattle...raised their own garden, and planted their own apple, peach, and pear trees. Grandma's dad was a storekeeper, so onec in awhile they'd go to the store and the kids might get some penny candy or some ice cream.

So the farmers were the ones who made do with what they had, and the folks in town were the ones with a little money...but they weren't gonna buy the tractors, 'cause they generally had no place to use them. And since bankers weren't in the realty or machinery resale business (as a lot of them seemed to be from the '70's until today), they'd generally let a loan to a good customer ride until he COULD pay them back.

Or at least that's what I've been told.

My Dad always told of his having to eat lard sandwiches.

All his life he was frugile. Would not spend a dime if he could get by some other way.

Those times must have been rough, fellas.

Allan

My dad said that he would have left the country, but didn't have enough money to even do that!

Back then farmers were dependent upon each other
because they often needed help from a neighbor, especially at harvest time. I go back home now, and the neighbors don't neighbor anymore.