The Lynn’s have never been good at getting rid of anything and future posts will attest to that, but I’m starting my contributions with the one that Dad always wanted to replace but never found a suitable candidate for.
In the late 50’s Dad and Grandpa were farming a full section of southwest Iowa land with a MH 30, 33 and 44. They purchased a 4-row planter during this time but most all equipment was two row including cultivating and harvesting machinery. Dad and Mom raised hogs, milked a cow, had chickens and Dad even delivered mail to scrape out a living while raising us kids.
In about 1964 he purchased a used MH444 diesel with the high arch front axle, duel remote hydraulic controls and a modified Deere 3 point from the Red Oak, Iowa JD dealership. He had it repainted all MH red because (1) it needed paint, (2) it was cheaper to only use one color and (3) at the time he didn’t care for the two tone triple paint scheme. He found a 4-row cultivator for a narrow front Massey and thought he was cutting a big swath when cultivating with it and we did a lot of cultivating in the 60’s. It was a major chore to put that thing on around the wide front. He would put one side on at a time by driving in as close as possible and then using jacks and the loader on the 33 to pull the cultivator into place. Needless to say once it was on each year…..it stayed on!
The attached picture shows it with the cultivator sitting with the 44 and 33 in the driveway. The 30 was just off to the right. As far as I know this is the only photograph we have of the triple.
I was less than 10 but had the honored job of driving the tractor as Dad and Grandpa picked up hay bales. I was to drive as close to the bale as possible so they could pick it up from the trailer without having to get off onto the ground. They didn’t like it when I would run over the bale with the rear wheel of the narrow front tractor or when they had to hop off the trailer to reach a bale. It was much easier for me to drive correctly when I could just miss the bale with the wide front wheel.
The 444 left the farm when Dad got the fever for a new MF 180 diesel. He sold it to a neighbor to help get the money for the 180. That neighbor later sold it to another further away who used it to pull an early Vermeer big round baler. And then we lost track of it for awhile.
Years later we learned that a salesman for the MF dealership in Clarinda, Iowa had owned it to use on his hobby farm. The starter went out in the late 70s or early 80s and he sold it to a salvage yard because it was too expensive to find a replacement unit. The 444 was apparently sitting on a sidehill the frosty fall morning they came to get the tractor. As they were winching it onto the tilted flatbed truck the 444 slid off the side and rolled onto it’s top ruining all the sheetmetal.
After we started collecting Dad was always looking for a similar 444 diesel but he never found one he thought was good enough to replace the one he had owned forty years earlier.
More Later,
Bob