FAIRMOUNT, Ind. – Marcus Winslow lives on the Winslow family farm where his cousin James Dean came to live after his mother died. On this farm, Dean was photographed with a 1954 Minneapolis Moline UB tractor that was purchased at the Union Implement Co. in Jonesboro, Ind., Marcus said. The photos were taken by photographer Dennis Stock. He took several pictures of Dean in Fairmount on a visit back home on the farm and around town for a photo shoot in Life Magazine.

David Loehr, owner of the James Dean Gallery, shared if it were not for those photographs there would not be many of James Dean in his hometown.

James Dean was born on Feb. 8, 1931, in Marion, Ind. The family moved to Fairmount then to Santa Monica, Calif., where Winston Dean worked as a dental technician. When James Dean was five, his mother, Mildred, died of cancer. His father, unable to take care of him, sent him to live with his Aunt and Uncle Marcus and Ortense Winslow. “My mother and James’ father are brother and sister,” Marcus said about the situation. “My mother was a Dean before she married dad.”

After returning to Fairmount after his mother’s death, James Dean attended school in the town. According to a brochure handed out at the James Dean Gallery, James Dean “was an average student. He participated in sports and excelled in basketball and track. He was a member of the Debate Club and took part in all the school plays. Upon graduating from Fairmount High School in 1949, he returned to California and attended Santa Monica City College and later UCLA where he was a theater major and performed in a production of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1950).”

In 1952, James Dean moved to New York. He made three movies – East of Eden, Rebel Without A Cause and Giant. Only East of Eden was released before his death on Sept. 30, 1955, in a car crash.

The pictures for Life Magazine were taken during a visit to Fairmount in February 1955. Marcus remembers the visit well, and he appears in several of the pictures that now have been made into a book, simply titled James Dean. During the visit, James helped Marcus build a model Jaguar and repair his bicycle.

“I don’t know if Jimmie drove this tractor or not,” Marcus said about the UB. “But it was on the farm, it was a little more modern and it was here when the Life Magazine photographer came and took pictures of my dad on the tractor. Dad farmed with that tractor for 25 years.

“James lived here ages after his mom passed in California. They’d lived here before he went to California, so he kind of knew everyone,” Marcus added about James coming back to Fairmount and the farm.

The farm where Marcus grew up has been in his family for years. “My grandparents Ancil and Ada Winslow established this farm in 1895. It has been in the family ever since. I helped dad farm, but I didn’t have a lot of time because I worked at the Implement Shop and retired in 1987.”

Marcus worked at the same shop that the UB came from in Jonesboro.  “Massey was our best seller.  I was a parts man for 17 years.”

The farm is a beautiful place, with the lovely farmhouse and bank barn built in 1904. “We had animals when Jimmie was here, we had cows, hogs and chickens and a milk cow, then the last few years just cattle.”

About the UB, Marcus said, “We kept it original. The Moline has been here since it was new. There were not a lot of UB’s around. It was one of the first diesel farm tractors in Grant County.”

The photo of James Dean in front of the UB with Marcus’s dad on the tractor sits in front of the Moline in the shed with other James Dean memorabilia. While this tractor is important because of the James Dean connection, as important to Marcus is the fact that his late father farmed with it for all those years, so this tractor carries a lot of sentiment.

The shed is a mixture of Dean memories and antique tractor collectibles. Besides the UB, Marcus also has a few other tractors, especially Massey tractors he has collected. “I have a Massey 1100 Wheatland and an 1100 row crop and an 1150 row crop and a 1456 Farmall. The Wheatlands came from out west.

“The 1150’s, there were not a lot of them made, there were a lot of the 1155’s when they replaced the 1150’s they were one of the first factory V8 farm tractors,” Marcus explained.

Along with the tractors there is also a beautiful truck, a 1954 R110 International. The tractors as well as the truck are beautifully restored.  Marcus said that his son Cody is responsible for painting the tractors and truck.

The Winslow farm is one of the sites listed on the James Dean stops in Fairmount. The farm, though, is a private stop, just a roadside view not a place to stop. The James Dean Gallery offers a map of several stops and has a huge collection of James Dean memorabilia to view. It is wonderful to know though that the farm history of James Dean lives on in Fairmount and Grant County.