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Michigan couple’s tractor collection fills out museum

Some couples are engaged in a sport such as golf, some go to antique shows and others, like Diane and Chuck Schneider of Lapeer, Mich., collect antique tractors together. In fact, the Schneiders took their collection and created their own private museum.

For those lucky enough to get to visit the Schneiders’ collection, they will see a view that looks like it could be on the cover of a coffee table book. A lovely farmhouse sits amid a huge red barn, a train caboose, an old-fashioned gas station and other outbuildings that once housed a livestock operation. The museum is a private one that they open to friends and family and, at times, for clubs and groups.

“The collection came before the farm,” Chuck said – the Schneiders had been collecting for a while and were literally running out of room at their prior location.

When they heard this place was for sale, they checked it out.
Diane, who grew up on a dairy farm, comes from a family involved with the antique tractor-collecting hobby. “My father has always been involved with tractors,” she said.

When the couple first started talking about collecting, she explained there was only one model that really interested her husband: “Chuck always said if he got a tractor, it would be an orchard.”

When the opportunity came to purchase one, he bought it … and they have been collecting ever since.

“The main focus of our collection is orchard tractors,” Chuck said. “I like streamlined things. I found the first tractor five years ago. I bought a 1941 McCormick Deering O4.”

The couple even has a collecting goal: To have one of all the orchards made, and they have made a good dent in achieving just that. “There are only about five or six more that we need,” Diane shared.

The farm served up the perfect place for this collecting couple to work their magic and store their ever-growing collection. “Thirty to 40 years ago, this was a sheep farm. They had 1,500 head,” Chuck shared. “Twenty years ago an industrialist bought the farm as a weekend place to bring his customers and grandkids.

“They were very family-oriented. When the owner died, his wife kept the place for another 15 years. The farm manager, Howard Brandt, ran it and they raised Highland cattle. This was a gentleman’s farm with 240 acres, and they raised this and that.”
When the Schneiders looked into the property, the owner had decided it was time to sell and offered them an unusual opportunity when they purchased the farm.

“We bought everything – the contents of the farm, house, furniture, equipment, cattle and even the cats,” Chuck said. “They were great to do business with.

“We sold off the equipment and kept the cattle for six to eight months. We then donated some of the cows and sold others. We now legitimately farm 160 acres of the 240. We alternate soybeans and corn.”

The home furnishings left behind fit in wonderfully with their own. They added a breezeway, and soon the Schneiders were settling in. Before the couple moved to the farm, they had purchased a train caboose. “It was an engagement present in lieu of an engagement ring,” Diane shared. “Chuck asked me which I’d rather have – a ring or a caboose.”

Diane said there was no contest of which one to pick. “We were actually married in front of the 1926 Erie caboose,” she added.
Selecting the caboose was not a shocker to Chuck, who met Diane while admiring her car at a show. “We met when I was showing my 1932 street rod,” she said.

She has had her street rod for 20 years and created her car using the 283 engine out of her father’s dump truck. Chuck has a beautiful Mercury and the couple share an amazing 1935 Delage D8-85 Clabot Roadster that they own together.

When it came to putting their plans into action on the farm, Chuck’s background in construction and Diane’s flair for design came together in their two-year renovation. The latest addition to the buildings are cupolas they purchased from a cupola collector; they added these to almost every outbuilding, giving the farm a unique look.

“The Amish completed the big barn,” Chuck said.

“They had a driver bring them and fluffed and buffed it. We added the second floor and big doors to get things inside and out. There was originally a haymow and a milking parlor.”

In the cattle outbuildings, the Schneiders placed their extensive collection of orchard tractors. Chuck said, “The building is heated and insulated. It stays at 46 degrees; we also run a dehumidifier.”
For now, the museum is complete. But, for this couple who loves the same hobby, who knows what they will decide to do next?

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.

11/12/2008