HAMILTON, Ohio – Ed Beeler likes Oliver tractors. His dad, Earl, farmed with them, so he grew up with Olivers. In December 1971, when Ed was a senior in high school, he bought a new Oliver 1655. He still has it, plus about 29 other Olivers. His wife, Rosemary, has three Oliver Cletracs.

“I just like Olivers,” he said. “I have to be an oddball. I like the pretty green.”

Beeler retired in January 2024. He had been farming one farm continuously since 1968 and with the Oliver 1655 since 1971. He liked that tractor because it was similar to his dad’s 1650.

“The 1650 and 1655 were quite popular in the Oliver line because they could be both a utility and a work tractor,” Beeler said.

His dad got started with Olivers because when things were slow on the farm, he would do side jobs for a nearby Oliver dealer in Oxford. He would get parts and repairs covered at that dealership. That dealer is long gone but Ed kept going with Olivers.

Beeler takes his tractors to shows but mostly “I just fiddle with them.” He had done a lot of trading, but Rosemary stopped that, saying that if he was going to collect Olivers he should not sell or trade any more of them.

“I have restored four with complete paint changes,” he said. “The Oliver 60 that I painted 30 some years ago, it’s faded. It needs to be painted again. The new theory is to keep them in their ‘work clothes’ which means whatever shape they’re in, fix up what you need to fix and leave them how they are.

“I am not that big on repainting them,” he said. “It takes some of the originality away.”

However, one exception was Rosemary’s Cletrac. She requested that it be perfect to take to the 2024 Farm Science Review.

Rosemary got interested in Oliver Cletracs because her uncle, Al Sterwerf, had one when she and Ed got married. She wanted to buy it.

“It was a bulldozer, sort of,” Rosemary said. “I offered to buy it but he refused to sell it to me. Then he sells the house, and the tractor goes with it. I said, ‘I am going to own one of those someday.’ Now I own three of them.”

The Beelers live on a Century Farm that has been in the Beeler family since 1901. Family history plays a big part in their lives and their Oliver fixation.

“I still have two of my dad’s tractors, an Oliver 1650 he bought out of a ‘repo’ deal from Liberty, Ind., where it was originally shipped, and an Oliver 88 diesel that he wore out,” Beeler said. “The engine block gave out on it, so I found a gas engine to put in it and it still ran till about the day he died.

“He had a row crop 88 and then there were super 88s,” he explained. “A big reason that most people liked them was if you pushed the clutch in, the PTO (power take-off) kept going. Other tractors, if you put the clutch in, the PTO went out of gear.”

His dad also told him to never sell the first three Olivers that he bought. The first was the new 1655. Second was an Oliver Super 88 wide front end he bought at a Casstown, Ohio, auction and third was an Oliver 60 from a neighbor.

“It had a busted block,” he said. “A neighbor welded the block on it and it still runs.”

Beeler keeps looking for Olivers that are not yet in his collection. He would take a Super 44 but they are extremely rare and expensive, he said. He was bidding on one once but quit bidding and instead paid off his pickup truck. Mostly he enjoys fiddling with them.

“Most of the antiques I bought are not running or barely running,” Beeler said. “I figure out what’s wrong and fix them so they’re running.”

Since he has retired, Beeler is working on getting build cards for some of his tractors. A build card tells the history of a tractor, when it was manufactured, the serial number, engine number, production date, and more.

“I have one for the tractor I bought new,” he said. “The production date was the 26th of October, shipping date the 29th of October 1971. It was shipped to Liberty, Ind. That’s where I bought it.”