Gary and Marlene Reinecke plan to visit Moline, Ill., in March for Gathering of the Green.
John Deere owners get together every other year to talk tractors. The couple have a wonderful story to share about farm equipment serving it’s fifth generation.
In 1914, Arthur and Mabel Reinecke bought five acres in the Warm Beach area for $500.
“At the time, they lived in Idaho and would only venture over for a vacation now and then,” said their great-grandson, Scott Reinecke, 46. “It was quite an adventure getting to Warm Beach in those days.”
The couple caught a mail boat in Everett to take them to McKee’s Beach south of Stanwood. They moved to the property in 1925.
Arthur built a home and the couple found a variety of ways to make a living through the Great Depression. Farming fed the family in the 1940s.
“They bought 80 acres and grew strawberries and beans. It was then that Arthur decided he needed a reliable tractor to work the land.”
Arthur bought a 1946 John Deere Model LA.
It cost a whopping sum in 1946: $650.
The tractor was used to work the fields until the mid-1950s, when Arthur decided to sell most of his land.
The Model LA was passed down to Arthur and Mabel’s son, Marvin, who had a home and 10 acres adjacent to his parents’ land. “He used the tractor to cut hay and perform maintenance jobs around the home,” Reinecke said.
After Marvin died in 1976, the tractor was used by the family to keep fields cleared and to haul wood cut from their acreage. The tractor was beginning to look, and act, its age.
“Some days it would take us hours to get the thing started and on other days, it was not to be,” said Marvin’s son, Gary, 68. “We really did not have a great need for the tractor after the family property was sold in 2001, but the sentimental value of a machine that had been in the family so long would make it tough to part with.”
Gary’s son, Bruce, purchased property outside of Stanwood with a couple of outbuildings and some fields to maintain.
It was the perfect place for the aging equipment.
The tractor was used to haul brush around the property and was great for taking grandchildren for rides. After it became too difficult to keep running, it was left to rust in a shed.
A year ago, Gary decided to restore the tractor. It was time to turn a work horse into a show horse, he said.
He researched old tractors and discovered there were only 700 more Model LAs built after theirs. Gary joined the Cascade Two-Cylinder Club, a group of John Deere enthusiasts, and received valuable advice on how to proceed. Sons Scott and Bruce, and their children, helped, too.
Parts were removed, sandblasted, wire-brushed, primed and repaired as needed. A temporary booth was constructed and Bruce did the final paint job. The LA will be shown at the 2009 Harvest Jubilee from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Country Store at 8815 271st St. NW, Stanwood.
Also at the Jubilee, see a photograph of Mabel Reinecke driving a fruit truck from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Floyd Norgaard Cultural Center, 27108 102nd Ave. NW, Stanwood.
The tractor, all gussied up, cruised the first weekend in August along the fair parade route in Stanwood.
Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com.
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