This is a picture of my Grandfather Cecil that I had also never seen. He’s standing by the 1936 John Deere Model A he bought new in 1936. As far as we can tell the picture was probably taken in 36 or 37. This was the first tractor on the farm and began the phaseout of farming with horses.


Cecil 36 JD A by M Patterson, on Flickr


The tractor is actually still in the family. It was passed to my Dad after Grandpa passed away a couple years before I was born. One of my first paint jobs was redoing the tractor in 1969 (the picture is of my younger brother Dennis). When dad quit farming the tractor went to him. When Dennis sold his place a few years ago the tractor went to our cousin (who is also a grandchild of Cecil’s). It looks a little worse for wear now but her and her husband are planning on doing a restoration on it.


Dennis 36 A by M Patterson, on Flickr



Another piece I got from my brother was an old toy dump rake. This had belonged to my Uncle Wilbur. Wilbur died when he was 16 and this was packed away and passed down thru my side of the family. The rake is horse drawn and appears that it was barely played with.


Dump Rake by M Patterson, on Flickr



I thought it would be neat to make a small display to show the rake and picture (and bore my Grandkids with more stories ) so I looked around and found a model A tractor to display the rake with.

RTP by M Patterson, on Flickr


The tractor is not really inappropriate to be hooked to the hay rake. In many cases like my grandfathers’ when a farm bought it’s first tractor there was usually not enough in the budget to replace all the horse drawn equipment at the same time. As I understand it, the first year Grandpa only bought the tractor and a plow.

He also kept the horses instead of selling them off. This was basically insurance in case the whole tractor thing didn’t work out and for the equipment that just couldn’t be adapted for tractor use. In the case of the rake the tongue was extended and Grandpa could either use a rope from the dump handle to the tractor to release the hay or simply have one of his sons ride the rake to operate it.

Come Christmas I suspect this will go out in the living room, there’s just something about putting old toys out that time of year.

All in all I fell pretty blessed to be able to tell the kids the story of this stuff and eventually pass it on when the time comes.




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