How Are IH Fans Made?

Kim C. Spaulding

May 5, 2016

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Dear Dan,

It was a pleasure talking on the phone last night with you. The gentleman from Weare, NH that I was telling you about, name is Willis Ottery. His name is mentioned in the book that Ralph Baumheckel and Kent Borghoff wrote called International Harvester Farm Equipment: A Product History 1831-1985. One of the best if not the best book on International Harvester that I have read.

By way of an introduction I have been an IH fan since the age of nine. I was not brought up on a farm, however I worked on farms as a young boy and was a gearhead. At age nine I witnessed a W6 McCormick-Deering pull a SC Case out of the mud then hitched to the baler that stuck the SC and finished baling the field of hay. I was amazed at that great tractor which started me on a lifetime of interest with IH. I couldn’t get enough of IH. I subscribed to Harvester World Magazine and also collected ads and made a couple of scrapbooks of IH products which I still have. I strayed from IH in my late teens and 20s, but got back with the interest in my 30s, buying and restoring my first antique tractor—a 1927 McCormick-Dearing 10/20 which I still have. I have bought and sold through the years but now have 13 tractors.

I read an article in the Gas Engine Magazine from Fremont Hoover where he wanted to start an IH club. I couldn’t get pen in hand quick enough to encourage him. I went to the first Red Power Round Up in Winimac, IN in 1990 where the club was formed, and my national membership number is 12. I started the New England Chapter 18 in 1995, and was President for many years, then I stepped down to Secretary. This love of IH and its many followers is one of the best things that could have happened to me. I have met some of the nicest honest to goodness folks that you could ever meet, and I really enjoy the hobby. I’m now 77 years old, retired, and having a ball with activities of IH.

An IH enthusiast,

Kim