but they also do a fair share of repair for others. “We work on a lot of (John Deere) 4020’s,” Jerry said. “We even restore the engines on some red ones. We fix engines, but we don’t do the paint work. In a lot of cases, we’re fixing tractors that belonged to their dad.” In the shop right now is a 1932 Farmall F20. “He was just going to have us do a patch-it job by putting a different engine in it. But from the serial numbers, we found out it was the thirty-seventh F20 ever built. So he said, ‘I’ll guess you’ll have to fix it then.’” Even since he was little, Jerry has been fixing farm equipment – although he didn’t get off to a very auspicious start. “One day when I was in second grade, there was a hole in the feed auger. To keep the feed from running out, I tried to patch it with a cow turd. The auger was running and it took the finger right off my glove.” Mark laughed at the memory: “I saw him going to do it, but I couldn’t holler fast enough to get him to stop. Then we ran through the deepest cow manure there was in the yard to get up to the house.” Jerry said, “I’ve still got a scar on my finger, but I’m lucky I’ve still got the finger.”
Courtney, Jake, Tracy and Jerry Loutsch.
Growing up, it was kind of a family ritual to tinker with the tractors on Sunday. Many years, later, the tinkering tradition led to bigger and better things.
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After their maternal grandparents died, their mom, Rosie, wanted to have all of her family out to the farm on the 4th of July. “We were putz’n away on the tractors, driving them around, and Dad said ‘Let’s take them to town.’ We’ve been doing it ever since,” Mark said. “When we were driving through town, people weren’t expecting a parade of tractors, but they would come out and wave.” His wife, Lori, added, “Now the streets are full of people.” In fact, it’s been 28 years since the first parade. “In Oyens’ little city hall, there’s kind of a collage on the wall which includes pictures of the church, the elevator, the post office, and a picture of my sister-in-law driving a tractor all decked out for the parade. Whoever made that collage felt that our parade was an important part of the town,” Mark said.
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The Loutsch collection includes more than 100 John Deere tractors. “Dad used to farm with a 50 John Deere and a 70. In the early 1980s, we thought it would be kind of neat to have the whole line of 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80 tractors, so we started looking for them. We had about 50 tractors in the collection before we even added the 60 model,” Mark said.
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For the annual parade, “Whoever shows up and is capable of driving, we let them drive,” he said. “We don’t go very fast – there’s rules for everyone to follow. We used to have enough
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The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | August 2021
