RANTOUL, Ill. — Most everyone wishes they had a special keepsake to call their own, that had been in their family. Dan Ramsey of Shelbyville, Ind., has a special machine that started out in his family and was modified by his grandfather.

Ramsey had his Motel T Ford conversion kit that had been modified into a tractor to pull a wheat drill, at this year’s Half Century of Progress Show.

“My granddad, William Ramsey, built this instead of using a horse to pull the wheat drill between 40-inch rows of corn,” he said. “When my granddad got done, he sold it to a buddy.  I kept my eye on it.”

Trying several times to unsuccessfully buy the machine back, when the gentleman passed away, Ramsey bought it three or four years ago at his estate sale. “At the sale, the bidder bidding against me thought that the guy that had died made it (the little tractor). I told him my grandfather made it and he felt bad. He gave me a card and said if I ever needed help, to let me know.

“This was built sometime after 1915,” Ramsey explained. “It has a four-cylinder engine. Henry Ford made the kit. Granddad narrowed it to fit the 40-inch rows and shortened it. The tractor has an electric start.”

Now that the tractor was back home and he could work with it, he just needed the other half: The wheat drill, to have the complete outfit. Finding a wheat drill that had not sat in dirt and rusted badly proved to be an issue. Ramsey was amazed when he found just what he needed at a family event.

“I found the wheat drill when I was at my mother-in-law’s for Christmas … I told her I was looking for a wheat drill.” He was astounded when she replied, “I have one up in the barn.”

When he went to check it out, there it was on concrete, in great shape. The unit was now complete.

One fact Ramsey felt was surely serendipity was that his grandfather and his wife’s dad were almost neighbors. He thinks perhaps this was the wheat drill they may have supplied to his grandfather when he used the tractor so many years ago.

With a photo of his father working in a cornfield with the grain drill, this rounded out the generations that have worked on this innovative machine!