Russ' Vintage Iron

OMAHA (DTN) -- When I think of Oliver tractors, I always think of my uncle John R. "Jack" Quinn. While three of my uncles farmed, Jack was the only one who decided he would farm with the darker shade of green tractors than the rest of us.

Jack was the oldest of my grandparents' seven children, raised on the family dairy farm. After graduating from high school, he served in the U.S. Coast Guard in the mid-1950s. He was stationed in St. Louis and Seattle, but he never really talked about his time in the military. Maybe we should have asked.

After that, he came back to the farm and milked cows with my grandpa. My grandpa had been milking Shorthorns, but Jack liked Guernsey cattle, and he began to buy that breed.

Uncle Jack did many different jobs in agriculture: He milked cows and farmed for himself, worked for other farmers, bought and sold dairy calves, tested milk for the Dairy Herd Improvement Association (DHIA), and was even a cattle semen sales representative.

During the point in his career when he was working for other farmers, he operated Oliver tractors and came to like them. I asked him once what it was about them that he liked so much. He told me it was the fact that they produced so much power and barely used any fuel.

Uncle Jack owned several Oliver tractors over the years. When I was a little kid, he lived in a neighboring town and put up quite a bit of hay. His tractors were mainly Olivers, although I do remember him also owning a Massey-Harris at one time as well.

Later he relocated to a different part of the state, but continued to buy and sell dairy cattle, mainly calves. Because of this, he had tractors. I remember he had a Farmall M and a Farmall 400, but he still had Oliver tractors. There was a three-digit one (I think it was 660) and a four-digit one with a cab (maybe an 1850). As you can tell, I could never keep the model numbers straight.

When he retired from farming, he and my aunt moved somewhat close to where I live. His last Olivers were sold at his farm equipment auction in 2007.

We saw my aunt and Uncle Jack quite often, as we had them down for the kids' stuff at our house. He would always come to the county fair when our kids would show their animals; he loved 4-H livestock shows.

Even in "retirement," Uncle Jack still had jobs. He bought the local pawn/antique shop and ran it for several years. He had a big garden at their house in town and sold his produce at a local farmer's market. He even had chickens and sold the eggs at the farmer's market as well.

Last January, my dad and I were going to keep some of our heifers back in our beef cow herd, so we were in the market for a bull. Jack had a former customer he had sold cattle semen to years ago who was part of an annual bull sale. The good news was he had nice bulls. The bad news was the bull sale was in Burwell, Nebraska, roughly 150 miles to the west.

So, in the middle of February last year, I took a road trip with my 87-year-old uncle and my 75-year-old dad to buy a bull. Even though he was still active, Uncle Jack's health wasn't very good. So, I approached this trip as perhaps one more day to sit in a car and talk cattle, family history and just about anything else with him and my dad.

On the way home, Jack said something to the effect that while he didn't make a lot of money in his life, he really enjoyed everything he ever did in his career. He loved dairy cattle and was involved in just about every aspect of dairy production.

This really stuck in my mind. I thought about the saying "Do something you love, and you will never work a day in your life," and that certainly applied to him.

A few months later, he had to go to the hospital, but unlike the numerous times before, he did not get to go home. His body was worn out from a lifetime of work, and he passed away last July at the age of 87.

This fall, I drove by a farm place during harvest with a four-digit Oliver tractor on an auger at a grain bin site. This was the first one I had seen in a while, and my first thought was "Oh, Jack would have loved that tractor."

The two are forever tied together in my mind.

Russ Quinn can be reached at Russ.Quinn@dtn.com

Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @RussQuinnDTN

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