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Dad died next to his Farmall M
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Posted by zooeyhall on January 10, 2004 at 21:22:58 from (66.82.9.35):
I just wanted to post this message, because I know that there are many on this website who have deep affections for their IH tractors. I'm not a professional writer, but I'll try to tell the story as best I can. 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.
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