My John Deere Story by Rob Neeb

I grew up on a farm near Wellesley Ontario, Canada. My Dad got his first John Deere, an “H”, in 1940. 
 
My wife, Marjie also came from a farming background. They had a dairy herd near Stratford, Ontario and her Dad also farmed with John Deere tractors. 

So you see, I never knew a time when I wasn’t surrounded by John Deere tractors and always jumped at the chance to drive a 2 cylinder. There is nothing like the sound of a good running, hard working 2 cylinder John Deere tractor. I have said many times, “I think it is the sweetest sound this side of Heaven”.

My wife and I had a small farm for 27 years and of course I needed to have a John Deere. I bought my first Deere, a 1955 High Seat 60, in 1980.
We used it on the farm until just a short time ago when my son Matt, and his wife Jaime, bought the farm. 

A few years ago I started thinking about getting a few more of these old John Deere tractors. I thought it would be nice for the Grandkids to learn something about them and give them a connection with the past. 

 We now have the following John Deere Tractors:

1) 1934 open shaft unstyled “A” – row crop – narrow front
2) 1936 unstyled “B” – row crop – narrow front
3) 1950 styled “A” – row crop – narrow front
4)  1955 High Seat “60” Standard
5) 1958 “620” – row crop – narrow front
6) 1967 “4020” – row crop – narrow front – gas model.
 
In thinking about it though, I guess there are other reasons why I have started to collect these old tractors. It is a great way to meet other fellows who share this same passion about old, antique or classic tractors and farm machinery that I do.

I am sure that many others in my demographic also feel that they have been left behind by the rapidly changing times and technology. We had transistor radios, they have I-Pods, we had Elvis, they have Lady Gaga, we had Hi-Fi, they have Wi-Fi, and of course greasy hair and sideburns looked just as peculiar and different to our parents as baggy pants and nose rings look to us. For the record though, we are just as right as our parents were. But the techno stuff is here to stay, and we had better keep up with it. It’s not going away. This is the future we helped to create; now we have to learn to live in it.

In collecting and restoring these old tractors my goal is to offer my kids, my grandkids and friends alike, an environment that allows us all to keep one foot firmly rooted in the past, while the other steps confidently into the future. We have the old antique tractors in the barn, a solar system on the roof and a website on the internet.  www.ronsclassicdeere.com
We climb into our air conditioned SUV’s and follow the GPS to the next tractor show or parade, then step through the gates into an earlier era of mechanized agriculture. We really do live in the best of all 3 worlds, live in the present, look to the future and remember the past.

Ron Neeb
St. Mary's Ontario