Field-tested memories

OKL readers submit stories from the equipment that’s carried them.

Across Oklahoma, equipment has never just been a tool. They’re often the backdrops to childhoods, the center of family stories and an integral part of farmsteads. When Oklahoma Living readers shared stories from the equipment that shaped their lives, the theme was clear: tractors were loyal partners, cherished heirlooms and reminders of the people and moments that came before them. Whether polished or faded with rust, each tractor carries a story still worth telling.

Memories of the Massey Ferguson 180

Submitted by George Richardson
Member of Central Rural Electric Cooperative

The Massey Ferguson 180 remembers everything, and it’s lived a long life. Bought new in 1968 for $6,500, which was more than its owner made in three years of teaching, the Massey Ferguson 180 became the backbone of a young farmer’s dream. His father had just passed, his mother was struggling to keep the land and the farm seemed one bad season from disappearing. But with the help of neighbors, a few sharecropped acres and this brand-new tractor, the family carved out a future.

The Massey remembers the farmer’s sons perched on his fathers lap for a photo. It remembers the long nights baling alfalfa under cool evening air. And it remembers the farmer’s wife driving out with ice water and a warning that Gary England was giving about “big’uns rolling in.” But often, the farmer was determined to get the last rows planted or plowed before the rain hit, which meant staying on the field “long after common sense had gone home.” When lightning struck close enough to knock the grease off the farmer’s hands, the Massey’s rubber tires likely saved them both.

There were hard chapters, too. The Massey remembers the day the swather accidentally kicked on and injured the farmer while his young sons watched. But he healed, and the tractor returned to the fields. It remembers the farmer’s younger son driving him for the first time at eight years old and becoming the Massey’s most loyal driver. He cut, raked, and baled hay, moved and loaded round bales, drilled wheat, sudan, oats, and alfalfa, and planted and cultivated the soybeans. He rode the tractor into adulthood, then college, then marriage and finally, parenthood. Each of his own children sat on his lap in the same seat, listening to old tractor tales.

The Massey remembers working with the aging farmer until it wore out and was traded away, then rescued by the farmer’s grown son who wanted to keep it in the family. It remembers hearing that the farmer was gone. One of the last things the farmer asked was whether the old tractor would be fixed. The son promised he would fix the Massey.

“Five years have passed since the farmer died,” the Massey recalls. “I feel the wind across my hood, watch the storms roll through, feel the cold winters and I watch the boy playing with his grandchildren. He comes by every year or so to tell me thanks and that he hasn’t forgotten me. I’ll be here when he’s ready, like I always have been.”

Farmall generations

Submitted by W.B. Borders
Member of People’s Electric Cooperative

For the Borders family, tractors helped mark the turning of eras. Two generations of the Borders family worked on farms, guided by the reliability of their equipment and, more importantly, the reliability of the family. The older generation of five brothers grew up using mules and workhorses before an engine ever entered the picture. But in the mid-1900’s, machines like the Farmall tractor became their new partners on the field. It helped the Borders brothers break ground, disk fields and plant corn, cotton, peanuts and sorghum. The harvest was a family affair, with everybody pitching in. Sometimes the youngest, or meanest, brother had to take down the rows of corn. And if a tractor driver was going too fast, the others would throw ears of corn at them.

Through hard times and the Great Depression, the brothers stuck together and taught their children to drive and work with tractors. After some time, one brother headed to California. Near Bakersfield, California, he found new fields and drove many kinds of tractors throughout the rest of his life.

The remaining brothers stayed in Allen, Oklahoma combining labor and resources. Their kids worked hard alongside them, though there were many fun times as well: Swimming in ponds after finishing a meadow and plenty of food fights with watermelons and potatoes.

By the 1960s, irrigation changed everything. The work grew longer and the seasons stretched from the summer and far into the fall. Tractors also changed, but the work ethic didn’t. For two generations, the Borders family farmed most of their lives, spending long days together, and sowing a family legacy worth reminiscing over. And despite all those seasons, all those machines, and all those long days, the Borders family never had a single tractor accident.

“Tractors will always have a place in my fond memories,” W.B. Borders says.

Tractor tribute

Submitted by Melanie Jarboe
Member of Central Rural Electric Cooperative

My story begins when my dad worked a farm with nothing but hands, horses, and grit. He’d grown up working that way, and even into adulthood, he still hadn’t owned a tractor of his own.

That changed when he and my mom bought a 272-acre ranch. The tractor that came with the deal was an old turn-of-the-crank-to-start, John Deere, likely built before 1953. The rusty, old machine helped him break ground on his own land for the first time. It dragged and spread the manure in the pasture near the house that had built up during winter. Its days were numbered, but it continued to work until it could retire.

Eventually, Dad upgraded to a John Deere 1010 Special. It was nothing flashy, but it got the job done. When a gasket blew during hay season, he carved a new one from an aluminum can with his pocketknife. The tractor fired right up and finished the entire season with that homemade repair. He kept his first John Deere, “Old Green,” working for about 30 years until it began to spew oil. It stayed in the barn for a while, becoming a family fixture, before it was sold to someone who planned to restore it. It was hard to let go of the tractor that held so many memories. Hard to watch the trailer pull the green machine down the road, leaving the farm.

Later, for the first time in his life, my dad bought a brand-new tractor: a Kubota M7040. My mom insisted. It was important to her. At his age, he needed a reliable machine with AC and heating. The bonus was a radio and a CD player. This meant Dad could listen to Dolly Parton while working. The orange tractor served my dad well. The Kubota pulled posts, cleared trees and brush-hogged pastures. It baled and hauled round bales through every season. In the fall, it hauled large trunks of trees closer to the barn for easier wood cutting and splitting. The orange machine and the box blade repaired the country road many times after heavy rains created large ruts. It hauled dirt to fill the holes made by armadillos in the hay meadow. It was an all-purpose machine.

One day, my dad did something rare: he let me in the driver’s seat. He didn’t let anybody drive his tractor, so on that day I felt like somebody important. It has become a treasured memory. A few years later, when Dad could no longer run the tractor himself, I drove it alone, carrying out the chore he loved most: hauling hay to the cows. After my dad passed, my sisters and I sold the Kubota but kept it close to the family. It went to my daughter-in-law’s parents.

“My oldest grandson got to ride with my dad in that big machine, and now he and his siblings get to ride with their pops in it. It makes me smile when I think about it knowing a little piece of Dad rides along with them.”

Big John’s decades of work

Submitted by Pamela Post
Member of Kiamichi Electric Cooperative

Big John is a John Deere 70 Standard LP that’s lived many lives. Built in Waterloo, Iowa in 1956, the tractor began its journey on a freight train bound for Dodge City, Kansas. From there, it was purchased by the Post family of Marshall, Oklahoma, who hauled it home on the back of their ’54 Ford. For years, the tractor worked the land, farming wheat, alfalfa and doing chores big and small. It became the dependable backbone of the operation. But even the hardest workers get retired eventually.

After decades of service, Big John was parked in the back of the barn. Out of the weather but out of sight, it gathered dust while newer tractors took over. It might have stayed there for good if Dean Post hadn’t decided one day that the old machine deserved better. He aired the tires, hauled it to southeast Oklahoma and started what could only be described as tractor rehab.

Freshened up mechanically and cosmetically, Big John found a new purpose. It began traveling, not to fields, but to shows. It returned triumphantly to Waterloo five different times for the JD Two-Cylinder Expo. It rumbled through events in Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee, Illinois and even took long rides in Texas and South Dakota.

Then came the moment that proved retirement hadn’t dulled its work ethic. In April 2018, the Post family returned from the Bluebonnet Tractor Ride in Fredericksburg, Texas to find their modern JD 5100 sitting dead in the driveway. The cattle needed hay, and the technician hadn’t arrived. So the Posts turned to the only machine left that might be up for the challenge: Big John.

With the help of a chain and a couple of 2x4s, the old John Deere got to work. It pulled the bale out of the barn, nudged it into the hay rack and skidded it out to the pasture. The cattle came running. Big John had earned another chapter in its long story as the reliable worker it had always been.

“When the going gets rough, it’s that good old John Deere Two-Cylinder that will get the job done,” Big John boasts.

The Hare tractor story

Submitted by Virginia Hare
Member of Northeast Oklahoma Electric Cooperative

Moody Blue, owned by the Hare family, has spent more than 45 years doing exactly what it was bought to do: everything. Moody Blue is a diesel-powered Ford 710T who’s seen as much of Sweetwater Hollow as any person who ever lived there. Rabbit bought him new in the 1980s, right when he started building an earth-bermed home on Grand Lake. That project alone took five years, and Moody Blue worked every one of them, carving into hillsides, hauling, lifting, clearing and mowing.

He baled bermuda hay to feed the cattle during winter and helped build a runway down the valley floor, which was an all-hands family project. One person drove while four walked ahead, picking up rocks and tossing them into his bucket. At the end of the valley they switched places, again and again, all summer long.

When the runway was finished, Moody Blue got his aviation credentials. The tractor towed visiting airplanes to and from the family’s airstrip. Friends dropping in, family arriving for surprise parties and even the late Sen. Jim Inhofe’s aircraft when he came to check nearby property.

Moody Blue had so many roles, it’s hard to keep track of them all. Between tow jobs, Moody Blue cleaned creek beds, dug deeper swimming holes and hauled neighbors on hayrides during the holidays. He dug phone, electric and water lines; cut in foundation footings; pulled trees; and built an underground watering system.

Moody Blue watched the family grow and change, and grieved when Rabbit, the longtime owner and a fighter pilot in three wars, passed away. His son and grandson now keep the tractor running, replacing parts and coaxing along the old machine that has served the family through nearly every chapter of its life. Moody Blue is pretty sure every part of him has been replaced at least once. After decades of service, Moody Blue may feel vintage, but it’s still chugging, useful and proud, proving that with enough care, even a well-worn machine can truly last.

“Living with this Hare family through the years has been an amusing and challenging feat,” Moody Blue recalls. “And praise be, I’m still functioning!”