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Tractor is symbol of 20th century farm families

“Do you have rustitis?” I was asked that question no less than 15 times over the week-end while attending the Classic Tractor Calendar Club 15 year reunion, held in conjunction with the 41st Missouri River Valley Steam Engine Association reunion near Boonville, Missouri. Rustitis, as was explained to me, is what you get when you buy your first antique tractor.

John Harvey, founder of Classic Tractor Fever explained that if you collect and restore tractors, it becomes a disease. When you have a disease, you run a fever, thus the name of his company. “Believe me, Cyndi, everybody around here has a fever!” he proclaimed.

John worked in advertising and public relations for Dupont when I met him almost 20 years ago. It’s hard to believe that the company John now owns which features the Classic Farm Tractor Calendar, antique tractor related clothing, books, tapes, and other collectable merchandise all started because of a soybean herbicide.

“In 1988 I was with Dupont, and the new soybean herbicide Classic was going to be introduced,” Harvey said. “The marketing manager, having just returned from the European market where Dupont products were promoted on calendars, came in to my office with the idea to do a classic car calendar to promote the new herbicide. I thought about it for a minute and told him that there might be something a little more farmer friendly.”

Although the antique tractor hobby hadn’t really taken off at that point, Harvey knew some people who were restoring tractors. After talking with them, and doing some research, the first Classic Tractor Calendar was introduced by Dupont in 1990. Just a couple of years later, John Harvey left Dupont and started his own business.

John Harvey was not what you’d call a “classic tractor buff” prior to 1988. “I had always loved classic cars,” he said. “I had seen some classic tractors at a fair in Mills County, Iowa, that 4-H kids had restored, and I had a friend that worked for John Deere who had collected and was restoring some old tractors. I asked him if he thought this hobby was going to grow. I guess what you see now is what you get.”

I personally do not have the rustitis disease. I have a great appreciation for the classic tractors, and truly enjoy seeing them and visiting with those who own and restore them. Everybody has a story. Many of them bring before and after pictures. One gentleman showed me pictures of a tractor buried in a junk pile so deep that only the trained eye could identify it as the precious piece of history that it was.

I have attended many events in my 19 years as a farm broadcaster, and I can honestly say that I have never met a friendlier, more diverse, and more down-to-earth group of people than those I spent time with last week-end. There were no strangers. I was there to work a booth for the National Association of Farm Broadcasters Foundation. We are selling a limited edition scale model Farmall 806 Diesel with a radio on the fender, signed by Joe Ertl to raise money for scholarship and internship grants. I was there 2 minutes, setting up our booth, when a man from Lincoln, Nebraska, approached with a personal story about the Farmall 806.

One of my most notable observations is the vast age range involved in this hobby. It is cross-generational and certainly not a sexist hobby. There were as many women driving tractors in the daily parade of classic tractors as there were men. That is truly a reflection of farming and the farm family of the 20th century.

“What we are doing here is about memories,” John Harvey said. “We were all born in the 20th century. Our parents, most of our kids were born in this century. We are talking about a special piece of American history. We were all there. We were all involved in it. Because so many of us were involved in agriculture, the tractor is such a great symbol of what we remember and how farming and how farm families were in the 20th century.”

It is a great way to preserve that piece of American history.