As with many servicemen posted overseas, Dad often thought back to his home on the farm. (This is not to say he wasn't also thinking of Mom, and a few others who chased him. Have you
seen his address book?)
But here's proof that he had plans awaiting his January 1946 return to Pilot Mound. We all recognize these as the tractor cab he made for his Dad's McCormick Deering tractor.
 |
| Click to view photos at a larger size in a separate window. |
 |
| Heater? Air conditioned? What farmer wouldn't relish that? |
 |
| Bottom left: the "Yankee Screwdriver" note means "hammer." |
 |
| A plan comes together |
The Fates had tried to tell Pete to get off the farm and back into teaching. One day, while at the helm of his Gaar Scott steam engine, the water level gauge malfunctioned, and Pete discovered the machine had run dry only when the boiler blew up and exploded past him. Had he been standing only a few inches to the side, he surely would have been killed.
 |
| Pete Fraser's Gaar Scott steam engine |
Discouraging enough, but in 1943 Pete received a very real sign from above when he barely escaped a lightning strike. Dad was serving in Trenton by this time, but it made the Ontario papers, too.
 |
| Sometimes it pays to be short. |
It's wonderful to read that the good neighbours immediately came to Pete's assistance. This was typical of rural folk, and it worked both ways. Here's text from a
Pilot Mound Sentinel clipping in Grandma's scrapbook:
*
* *
Misfortune
in the form of illness having hit Jim Gemmill, at the most inopportune time of
Spring seeding, friends and neighbors of Goudney and Huron districts decided to
do something about it. The idea started with Pete (it would be Pete!) and was
taken up by Billy Elliott (it would be Billy!) who together with George
Paterson, proceeded to organize a “Bee”; it was the easiest job ever – because
everybody was willing and r’aring to go. Accordingly on Tuesday afternoon they
gathered at the Gemmill farm, some 25 strong – with ten tractors and eleven
4-horse teams – and made short work of a big job. During the afternoon, 75
acres plowed, including summer-fallow, and 47 acres seeded to oats and barley.
So well organized and so willing were the workers, that everything was
completed and cleaned up by 6 p.m. supper time.
*
* *
Once back on the farm, Dad wasted no time in building the tractor cab he had planned. I have already written that it was "
a resume in itself" but the cab was also a much-appreciated and well-used addition to Pete's new "work horse".
 |
| A proud Murray Fraser took a lot of photos of this tractor -- |
 |
| whether it was swathing, |
 |
| tilling, |
 |
| hauling, |
 |
or (gasp!) moving houses!
This job took two tractors (Pete's and Jack Houlden's). I don't know who the trusting homeowner was. The job looks very risky to me, as those looking on might agree. |
