My dad, August Follman, married to Marie Pease in 1932, moved to this farm in March 1934 initially as a share-cropper in partnership with the owner of the dairy farm, Mr. Browning. Browning furnished the first 20 cows and the 160 acres were tilled with two plug horses. On the very first morning walk to the barn, dad discovered that a cow had died overnight. Not a good omen.

Yet despite several setbacks, the farm evolved over the years. Of all the buildings in the photo, the only two standing in 1934 were the house in the right-quadrant and the barn, as all of the others were built by dad.

In 1937, dad bought his first tractor, a Farmall F-20 ("Old Betsy" and still family owned) and was his only tractor for years, but was such an improvement over horses, that he rented an additional 60 acres about a mile west for a total of 220 under tillage. Dad would often say, "Old Betsey made me more money than anything else I've ever had." Very true as by 1948, dad had bought the farm outright from the Browning family heirs.

During WW2, almost everything was rationed - most exceptions made to farmers. Rubber tires were impossible to buy for your car, so dad could (and did) buy several running gear wagons that came with 4 NEW tires that by the time he sold them "black market" he made enough to pay for the wagons!

Betsy was the workhorse until circa 1952 when dad upgraded to the Farmall Super M. Now he could pull a 3-bottom plow with 16" shares (Betsy could do 2 bottoms at 14"), a 71% improvement! Up until his retirement in 1980 doing crops (retired from dairying in 1974) dad could be found driving either of these tractors or the Super-H or Super-MTA from the 1950s.

I am very happy for dad - he wanted to "stay on the farm forever" and the Lord allowed him to do so. Just months shy of his 88th birthday we lost him in June 1999, and as a tribute to his love of the farm, he was buried with a cup of the farm soil from which he loved so dearly.