Olivers

Olivers were snazzy looking tractors! At least the row crop models from the 60 to the 88 were. When the “Super” series came out in (I believe) 1949, Oliver couldn’t resist the urge to “improve” the tractors by going from their signature red wheels to the same “Meadow Green” as the tractor bodies were painted. I think they look much less appealing than those with the red wheels. In about 1960, the White corporation bought out Oliver and changed the color scheme to green and white-period. No yellow grill, no red or yellow stripe surrounding the model number where it was cast into the frame below the radiator. Yuk!    

            My Uncle Wilson’s “big” tractor when I was a little kid was an Oliver 70 or 77, I don’t know for sure which. Probably, it was a 70, but there are little shreds of a couple of memories in my head that lead me to think it might have been a 77.  One of those is of a picture in one of my coloring books of the front grill of a tractor that looked suspiciously like a 77’s nose, with horizontal bars and so on. I colored the grill yellow and added a red 77 beneath the grill and showed the picture to my Dad and told him that it was Uncle Wilson’s tractor. He didn’t believe me, but was surprised the next time we went to Wilson’s farm, which we did almost every Friday night.  It’s one of those “I’m almost sure this is right, but not quite 100%” feelings, if you know what I mean.

            The other memory is more concrete, at least in part.  Wilson’s farm was mostly side hill, and it was about a hundred yards up his driveway to the house and barn from the road. On one of our Friday night visits, the Oliver was parked above the barn facing down the driveway. Wilson was milking when we arrived, and after getting our usual tin cup full of warm milk from the Surge bucket milker, I asked if I could climb up on the Oliver and pretend to drive it. He said okay and away I went! I was “driving” up a storm when I managed to step on the clutch and now I was REALLY driving, and scared to death! We were gaining speed at a good clip, and somehow I managed to take my foot off the clutch, and we came to a stop just as Dad and Wilson came running out of the barn to see what all the yelling was about! My dad would have tanned my hide, but Wilson told him that I had asked if it was okay and he had told me it was, and he hadn’t checked to see if the brakes were wet, which they hadn’t been.  What makes me think the tractor had to be a 77 is that the clutch pedal on a 70 is on the left side of the transmission case, and the one on the 77 is on the left also, but comes up above the operator’s platform, and it would have been much more easy for me to step on it if the tractor was a 77. 

            Another memory fragment, though is of riding with Wilson on the Oliver when he was plowing on of the fields. I seem to recall standing between the fender and the transmission case, which would have been more likely on a 70, because the operator’s area on a 70 has floor pans placed on either side of the transmission case, and the 77 has an operator’s platform above the transmission case and has just the axle housings between the platform and the fenders.

            Whichever model it was, I guess I will never know for sure, since Wilson and anyone else who might have known for sure are all gone now.  My Dad is still alive, but he doesn’t know. On one of my visits back home in the late nineties or very early 2000’s , I asked Wilson if he knew where it had wound up after his farm sale in 1961. He told me he did, and we went to see if it might be for sale, as I had by then begun collecting tractors. Unfortunately, the man who had bought it was not home, and his wife said he had Alsheimer’s disease and would probably not know where it had gone when he traded it for a 770.  I tried to contact a tractor collector in Cortland County by the name of Roger Cairn(s), who my relatives told me had several Olivers, and might know where the tractor was, but there was no response. So Roger, if you are still out there, and you happen to read this and know where the tractor is, and what model it is, please let me know!