By NANCY VORIS
Indiana Correspondent

FRANKLIN, Ind. — Vernon Price began farming with long days, faith in the Lord and a 1957 Case 400 – a tractor with a legacy that still bonds the family even after his death in 2008 at the age of 79.
Price lived a simple life devoted to his family, his church and his farm. He was a gospel music fan and helped his neighbors at every turn.

He married his wife Verna in 1951, and together they farmed up to 850 acres and raised five children: Beverly, Diana, Jayme, Fred and Tim.

They were a classic Midwestern farm family, with everyone helping in their own way. All took their turn in the kitchen, but Vernon started the day preparing a big country breakfast. Diana liked driving the tractors, while Beverly and Jayme preferred homemaking skills, gardening and canning.

“We said we got our babysitter first, then our tractor driver,” Verna said of Beverly and Diana.

As Fred and Tim got older they farmed alongside their father, learning to drive on the 400 when their feet could reach the pedals, then moving up to the larger tractors. They were sternly told that if the cows weren’t milked of a morning, they would have to take the school bus instead of drive themselves to school.

Verna did her share of tractor driving, and there was always the family’s expansive, park-like lawn to mow. She remembers the hectic days of harvesting as she drove the grain truck to the elevator.

“Someone was always telling me to hurry up,” she remembered, laughing. “Vernon told me to hurry up and get to the elevator, and the guy at the elevator told me to hurry back.”

She said her husband wasn’t very verbal about his affection to her, and told her once early in their marriage that he loved her.
“He said if that ever changed, he would let me know,” she said.
The family grew up and moved on, the boys took on other jobs and Vernon gradually let go of his rented acres.

But his interest in restoring old tractors gathered the family back to the farm in a new way, working on the tractors and taking part in parades and tractor shows. He preferred the Case brand, having learned about them from working at a dealership in Shelbyville in his younger years.

He became a charter member of the Johnson County Antique Machinery Assoc. (JCAMA) in 1992, which sponsors an annual show just a few miles from the Price home in Johnson County Park. After Vernon’s death, the 2008 JCAMA show was dedicated to his memory as the family displayed his tractors.

Tim and Fred joined their father in tractor restoration, as well as Jayme’s husband, John Spruill, who organized the first consignment sale at the show and continues to organize it. Their son, Wes Spruill and Diana’s son, John Baugh, have also followed their late grandfather’s hobby.

The family and their tractors are a highlight every year at the Johnson County 4-H Fair Parade, with three generations driving up to eight or nine tractors in the procession.

In all, the family owns 27 old tractors, ranging in age from a 1935 Case L to a 1979 Case 2290 and including a few Oliver, Farmall and Massey Harris tractors. The Spruills have six of their own and Diana has two.

Sixteen are Case tractors including a backhoe, all proudly featured at the JCAMA and other area tractor shows.

But the family’s legacy took a jolt in April of 2009, when a machinery shed caught fire and burned to the ground, leaving six charred tractors in its wake. The acrid smell of burned rubber and wiring hung in the air.

But Fred and Tim wasted little time. Five days after the fire they had the Case 400 registered in an antique tractor pull. Then they worked on their mother’s Dixie Chopper.

“They had it up and going for Mother’s Day,” Verna said.
At the JCAMA show in June of 2009, the family showed tractors and pulled as usual. But tractor pull announcer Max Fitzpatrick lovingly gave Fred and Tim a nickname.

“Here come the ‘Charcoal Brothers,’” he said as they entered the field.

This year, with Case being one of the featured brands at the JCAMA show on June 18-20, the Price family will bring their Case tractor collection. The brothers hope to have five of the burned tractors running and at the show.

Though they have not yet received their bright paint jobs like other tractors at the show, the family will proudly bring them to continue the tradition. The brothers’ goal is to get them running first, then painted.

Tim said, “We going to get them all to the show if we have to hook them together and drag them.”