Massey Discussion Forums > Massey Talk > Old Family Photographs.
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RE:Old Family Photographs.

Malcolm, John and others,

I really love some of the pictures posted on here! You can tell it in a story but nothing says it like a picture. Those stacks are unbelievable! I remember you telling about them when we were over there looking at the house with the thatched roof and you telling about the pride the early farmers put into stacking the bundles but nothing tells it better than a picture!

I have very few pictures from the past as our house burned to the ground in 1976 and although my dad was a packrat and saved everything he ever came in contact with since a child it was all lost in the fire. That was 40 years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday.

While going through my uncles estate we did however find a couple pictures he had stashed away but nothing like my dad had before the fire. Here is one of the best pictures I have of my Grandpa Ted with his team of horses, the car in the shed is dads new 1949 Plymouth so I am guessing this was right in that time frame. I don't know if he was still using the horses much for farming or if they were retired several years earlier and he just kept them as pets. I know they had names and I heard them as a child but I couldn't guess in a million years what they were.

Joe
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RE:Old Family Photographs.

Very nice old family photo Joe, do you still own the Plymouth?

Your discussion of horses and names prompted me to look in the old photo tin again this morning before I post a few family tractor related photos.

Here are the last two horses grandad kept at Salmonby House Farm, jumping on a generation from previous posts looking at dad in the first photo I am pretty sure these were taken in the early 1950's, so grandad must of been quite determined for almost 20 years to keep the horses just in case those tractors broke down and the horses would be needed again!!
After all these years I can still remember dad talking about "Bonny and Bounce" being the names of the last two horses.

Malcolm.

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RE:Old Family Photographs.

Here is another family photo slightly younger than the previous ones.

It is of my grandfather Jim and great uncle Fred (left) at the Royal Agricultural Show in Shrewsbury in 1948.  They are on the Massey-Harris stand with John Stearns (right) a senior salesman of the day trying no doubt to sell them an M-H 744 diesel tractor which had only recently been introduced.  Well - he didn't suceed!!!  There was still a bit of life left in the old U frame MHs and the Fergusons and Fordson Majors had got their feet throught the farm gate.

Note that this tractor is without the hydraulic lift which was an optional extra.

John
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RE:Old Family Photographs.

This is a picture of me as a very young lad!  This is my gradfather's by then well out of action green MH 25 tractor parked up in our farm yard.  On the seat is Stewart Eccleston who was our next door neighbour.
John
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RE:Old Family Photographs.

This photo is taken on the farm of my great uncle Ben, probably in war time.

He is on the MH binder and his daughter Muriel is driving the red 1938 MH Pacemaker tractors.  They are just finishinh a field

John
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RE:Old Family Photographs.

This is the first diesel engined tractor that the family ever owned.  My Dad bought it when it was about a year old.  It is an MF 35 with 4 cylinder Standard Motor Co. engine.  

They had a poor reputation for starting and this one certainly lived up to its name!  But I think being new to diesels we perhaps didn't know enough.  With the right pump settings, good injectors, the thermostart working properly and MOST of al important - top class batteries.  They were fitted with a pair of 6Vs - a recipe for disaster from new as there always seemed to be one that was weaker than the other and they had wretched flat terminals.

But it was a good slogging machine and here is Dad's driver Clarence "Jack" Eccleston who spent many hours on it.  The factory in the backgorund is the MF Central Parts Operation in an ex war time Ford aero engine factory building.  They also made the MF 1250 articulated 4WD tractors there too.

John
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RE:Old Family Photographs.

We had horses in Iowa too!  My Great Great Grandfather was a curcit rider minister for the Methodist chuch and came here from Illinois in about 1870 after serving in the Civil War.  He ended up purchasing three quarter sections of land here where I live today.

The land around here had been given to military officials as a War Bonus following the war and he bought it from those original owners who likely had never even been to Iowa.  He kept a diary and other than Sundays most days were spent "breakin' prairie" or "fixin' the buggy".  I'm sure we can't even start to imagine how hard life was here in the 1870s.

The attached photograph was probably taken about 1915.  Though not as flashy as the ones we saw from England I'm sure these were the work or plow horses.  I believe they are being held by my granddad's older brother though it is hard to tell with his hat and the shadow on his face.  His clothing is a bit less formal than what we saw earlier in this post.  I especially like his shoes or should I say lack there of.  

Today a newer barn sits sits where this barn is and a larger windmill has replaced the one you see here.  The landscape in the background is the same except it is nearly void of any trees.   If you look closely at the corn in what we have always called the "East Field", between the barn and windmill,  you can tell it was planted in a check fashion.   

        Bob

Having trouble sizing photo down.  check later!

RE:Old Family Photographs.

In an earlier photo I showed my great uncle and his daughter cutting wheat with his Pacemaker and an MH binder.  Daughter Muriel was driving the tractor.

I eventually bought that tractor and Muriel came up to see it in my collection in 2005 when she was heading for 80 years old.

John
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RE:Old Family Photographs.

This is the tractor that set me on the long road of interest and collecting all things Massey Harris, their first ever and new tractor was photographed soon after delivery to Holton Beckering in 1935, dad took the photo with an old box camera and Billy Hardwick is proud to be in the photograph, you can just see the lever of the M-H 23 plough which was delivered new with the tractor. The tractor serial number 106477 and UK registration number FW 6066.

Malcolm.
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RE:Old Family Photographs.

Malcolm, John and Others,

What some love photos. It is such a good job that people took photos at this time to record the history. My Mother had a Box Brownie camera but didn't take many farming photos but here are two of me on a Fordson N pulling a M-H binder, which I think is a #5 or #6 , I'm sure someone will put me right,when I was four years old in the field behind where I lived.
It was the start of my career in farming.That was all I ever wanted to do from that day on.

Alan
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