The Day He Chose This Massey Ferguson… The Bank Took It Back After 14 Months
On March 17th, 1985, Carl Hendrickx stood in the service bay of Whitman implement, 41 years old, watching a mechanic bleed the hydraulic lines on a Massie Ferguson 398 that still smelled like factory paint. The tractor was red and silver under the fluorescent lights, 95 horsepower, with a cab that sealed tight enough to keep dust out and a loader capacity he’d need for the silage work ahead.
Carl had driven 30 miles that morning in his 1979 pickup, the same truck he’d bought used six years earlier, the same way he’d bought almost everything in his life. But standing there with the purchase agreement folded in his shirt pocket, he understood he was crossing into different territory. The Massie Ferguson 398 cost $28,400.
He’d put $4,000 down. The rest would stretch across 60 monthly payments at 13.5% interest. And for the first time since he’d taken over his father’s dairy operation in 1968, Carl Hendrickx would owe money on a piece of equipment he couldn’t pay off by harvest. The decision hadn’t felt reckless when he made it.
Carl ran 53 holen on 180 acres in central Wisconsin. Land his father had cleared and fenced in the 1940s when dairy was still done by hand and a good cow gave you 30 lb a day. By 1985, Carl’s herd averaged 62 lb and the margins that used to carry a small operation were thinning every year. Milk prices had flattened. Feed costs hadn’t.
His Massie Ferguson 165, bought outright in 1976 for $7 and $200, was 9 years into work it had never been designed for. The clutch slipped under load. The three-point hitch dropped unexpectedly when he was moving round bales. Twice that winter, the engine had refused to start below zero, and Carl had spent an hour with a torpedo heater aimed at the block, losing time he couldn’t afford to lose.
The 165 had been adequate when his herd was smaller, and his sons were young enough that missed hours didn’t cost him hired labor. But Carl’s older boy, Michael, was 16 and worked after school at the co-op. His younger boy, Ben, had joined the basketball team and wasn’t home until evening. Carl’s wife, Ellen, managed the house and the bookkeeping, but she couldn’t pull a calf or move three tons of silage.
If the 165 failed during a critical week, Carl would lose milk production. And losing production meant losing income he’d already committed to the feed bill, the fuel bill, the tax payment that came every March like a season. So he’d gone to Whitman Implement on a Saturday in early February, not to buy, but to look.
The dealership sat just off Highway 29, a flat roofed building with a glass showroom and a gravel lot where a dozen Massie Ferguson machines stood in clean rows, their paint bright against the February snow. Carl walked the lot slowly, hands in his coat pockets, studying the equipment the way he studied cows at auction, not with excitement, but with the careful attention of someone who couldn’t afford to want the wrong thing.
The 398 had been sitting near the back, loader arms folded, rear tires taller than Carl’s chest. It wasn’t the biggest tractor on the lot. The four Woody models dwarfed it. But it was the right size for his operation. And when the dealer, Ron Whitman, walked over and asked if Carl wanted to start it up, Carl said yes, because saying no would have meant he wasn’t serious.
The 3298 fired on the first turn. The engine was smooth and steady. None of the roughness Carl had grown used to in the 165. Ron let Carl sit in the cab for 10 minutes working the hydraulics, testing the loader, feeling the way the machine responded. Everything was tight. Everything worked. Ron didn’t push.
He told Carl the price, explained the financing options, and said they could deliver it within two weeks if Carl wanted to move forward. Carl thanked him and said he’d think about it. He drove home that afternoon knowing he’d already decided. Ellen had been in the kitchen when Carl told her.
She’d looked up from the bills she was sorting, her reading glasses low on her nose, and asked how much. Carl told her. Ellen was quiet for a moment, then asked what the payment would be. Carl said $380 a month for 5 years. Ellen set her pen down and looked at him directly. She didn’t argue. She didn’t tell him no.
She asked if he was sure. Carl said he was. He explained the loader capacity, the reliability, the fact that the 165 was going to cost them more in downtime than the payment would cost in interest. Ellen listened, and when he was finished, she nodded and said, “If he thought it [clears throat] was necessary, then it was necessary.
” That was the word she used, necessary, not wanted, not desired. Carl signed the papers the following Monday. The first year with the 398 was everything Carl had hoped. The machine handled his workload without complaint, pulling the manure spreader through February mud, lifting round bales onto the feed wagon in July heat, pushing silage into the bunker during the long days of September.
Carl changed the oil every 150 hours and greased the loader pins after every use, the same way he’d maintained every piece of equipment he’d ever owned. The 398 became part of the rhythm of his days, reliable in a way the 165 had stopped being, and Carl began to believe the decision had been the right one.
Milk prices stayed steady through the spring. His herd stayed healthy. By December, Carl had made 12 payments without strain, and when Ron Wittman stopped by the farm one afternoon to check how the tractor was performing, Carl told him he had no complaints. But in January of 1986, Ellen found a lump in her left breast during a shower.
She didn’t tell Carl immediately. She waited 3 days until she’d made an appointment with Dr. Brennan in town, and then she told him quietly one evening after the boys had gone upstairs. Carl drove her to the appointment. Dr. Brennan examined her and scheduled a biopsy for the following week. The biopsy came back malignant.
Ellen had surgery in early February, a modified radical mastctomy that kept her in the hospital for 6 days and left her unable to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk for 8 weeks. Carl hired a neighbor’s daughter to help with the house. He took over the bookkeeping. Ellen recovered slowly, sitting at the kitchen table in the mornings with her arm in a sling, sorting receipts with her right hand, while Carl made breakfast before heading to the barn.
The medical bills arrived in March. The surgery had cost $8,700. The hospital stay was another $3,200. Their insurance covered 60% which left Carl responsible for $4,760 that he hadn’t planned for and didn’t have. He paid what he could immediately, $1,500 from their savings account and arranged a payment plan for the rest.
The hospital agreed to $200 a month. That brought Carl’s total monthly obligations to $580 before he counted feed, fuel, or utilities. Ellen went back to managing the books in April, and the first thing she did was sit Carl down and show him the numbers. They had $2,300 left in savings. If nothing else went wrong, they’d be fine.
If something did, they’d have decisions to make. In May, milk prices dropped. Not catastrophically, not enough to make the evening news. But the co-op’s monthly check was 320 lighter than it had been in April. And when Carl called to ask why, they explained that regional supply had increased and the price per hundred weight had adjusted accordingly.
Carl asked if it was temporary. They said they didn’t know. The June check was $280 less than May. Carl ran the numbers with Ellen. They could cover the bills if they cut discretionary spending. No equipment repairs unless something broke. No hired help. Carl would handle the workload himself. Ellen suggested they reduce the herd, sell off the lowest producers to lower feed costs.
Carl resisted. A smaller herd meant less milk, and less milk meant even tighter margins. He believed the prices would recover. Ellen didn’t argue, but she made Carl promise that if they didn’t recover by August, they’d make changes. Prices didn’t recover by August. Carl’s monthly milk check had settled at a number that left him $150 short of his obligations after feed and fuel.
He covered the gap with savings. Ellen sold off five cows in September. It helped, but not enough. Carl made his October payment on the 398 3 days late, and when the finance company called to remind him, he apologized and explained he’d had unexpected medical expenses. They noted it in his file and said they understood, but they asked him to stay current going forward.
Carl said he would. In November, the clutch went out on his silage chopper. It was a 1978 model, older than the 165 had been, and Carl had known for 2 years it was living on borrowed time. The repair estimate was $1,400. Carl didn’t have $1,400. He asked the mechanic if there was a cheaper option. The mechanic said he could patch it for $600, but it wouldn’t last more than a season.
Carl told him to patch it. He made his November payment on the 398 8 days late. The finance company called again. This time, the tone was different. They reminded Carl that chronic late payments could trigger a default clause, and default meant repossession. Carl promised it wouldn’t happen again. He borrowed $800 from his brother-in-law, a man who’d done well in construction, and didn’t ask questions.
Carl used $380 to make the December payment on time. Winter came hard. January of 1987 brought temperatures that stayed below zero for 11 straight days, and Carl’s fuel costs doubled. One of his best cows developed mastitis and had to be cold. Feed prices climbed because the previous summer’s drought in the southern plains had tightened corn supply nationwide.
Carl’s milk check stayed flat. He made his January payment 6 days late. In February, he missed it entirely. The finance company sent a letter. Carl called them and explained the situation. He asked for a forbearance, a temporary reduction, anything that would give him breathing room. They said forbearance wasn’t an option for accounts already in a rears.
They offered to restructure the loan, extending the term to 7 years, which would lower the monthly payment to $310. Carl asked what the total cost would be. They said $26,40 in interest alone. Carl said no. He told them he’d catch up. They said he had 30 days. Carl sold eight more cows in March. He sold a 1972 hay balor he’d kept as a backup.
He sold a flatbed trailer that had belonged to his father. Together, it brought in $6,700. He used $4,180 to pay off Ellen’s remaining medical balance and made two months of payments on the 398. That bought him until May. Ellen went back to work part-time at the county clerk’s office, 4 hours a day, 3 days a week.
Her arm still achd when the weather changed, but they needed the income. Carl didn’t ask her to. She simply started. In late April, Carl was moving round bales when the hydraulic line on the 398’s loader ruptured. It wasn’t catastrophic, but it needed repair, and the part cost $340 with labor. Carl couldn’t afford it. He patched the line himself with a splice kit and high-pressure tape, and the loader worked well enough to finish the job, but Carl knew the fix wouldn’t hold long term.
He made his May payment one day before the 30-day cure period expired. The finance company noted his account was current, but flagged it as high risk. June brought rain that delayed his first cutting by 10 days. When Carl finally got into the field, half his alalfa had gone to seed, which lowered the feed value and meant he’d need to buy supplemental protein to keep his herds production up.
The cost was $1,100 he hadn’t budgeted. Carl made his June payment 14 days late. In July, the finance company sent a field agent to the farm. The man arrived unannounced, driving a white Chevrolet with company plates, and he asked to see the 398. Carl showed him. The man walked around the tractor, checked the hour meter, noted the patched hydraulic line, and asked Carl if he intended to keep making payments. Carl said he did.
The man said the company appreciated that, but they needed consistency. Carl said he understood. The man left. Carl made his July payment 9 days late. On August 12th, 1987, Carl came in from the barn at 6:30 in the morning and found Ellen sitting at the kitchen table with an opened envelope in front of her. She didn’t say anything.
She just slid the letter across the table. Carl read it standing up. The finance company was exercising its right to repossess the Massie Ferguson 398 due to chronic non-payment. They would arrive within seven business days to collect the equipment. Carl’s outstanding balance after crediting 14 months of payments was $24,680.
That amount was now due in full. If Carl could pay it, the repossession would be cancelled. If he couldn’t, the tractor would be sold at auction and Carl would remain liable for any deficiency between the sale price and the balance owed. Carl sat down. Ellen asked what they were going to do.
Carl said he didn’t know. He called the finance company. He explained that losing the tractor would his operation. They said they understood, but the account had been delinquent for five of the last seven months, and company policy required action. Carl asked if there was any way to negotiate. They said no. Carl hung up. He sat at the table for 20 minutes without moving.
Then he went to the barn and did the morning milking. The repossession agent arrived 6 days later, a man named Dale who drove a flatbed semi and spoke to Carl with polite efficiency. Dale asked where the 398 was. Carl pointed to the equipment shed. Dale inspected the tractor, checked the serial number against his paperwork, and asked Carl to start it so he could drive it onto the trailer.
Carl didn’t have to. The contract didn’t require his cooperation. But Carl started the 398 anyway because refusing felt childish, and he’d been raised to meet obligations, even when they hurt. He drove the tractor out of the shed, up the ramps, and onto the flatbed. Dale secured it with chains. He handed Carl a receipt and a copy of the repossession notice. He told Carl he was sorry.
Carl nodded. Dale drove away. The whole process took 19 minutes. Ellen came out to the driveway after the truck was gone. She stood next to Carl and neither of them spoke. Michael was in the house. Ben was at a friend’s house. The farm was quiet in the way it’s only quiet in late summer when the work is relentless, but the day hasn’t started demanding it yet.
Carl looked at the empty space in the shed where the 398 had been. Ellen asked what they were going to do for a tractor. Carl said he’d figure it out. The 398 sold at a regional equipment auction 3 weeks later. Carl didn’t attend, but Ron Whitman called him afterward to let him know. The tractor brought $18,200. After the auction house took its commission, the finance company received $16,380.
Carl’s deficiency balance was $8,300. The finance company sent a letter stating they expected payment within 90 days. Carl called them and said he couldn’t pay $8,300 in 90 days. They offered a settlement, $6,500 if paid in full within 30 days. Carl didn’t have $6,500. He borrowed $3,000 from his brother-in-law again and $3,500 from a local bank using the farm’s equity as collateral. He paid the settlement.
He now owed his brother-in-law $3,800 and the bank $3,500. Both without formal payment schedules, both weighing on him in a way the original tractor payment never had because those debts were owed to people who knew his name. Carl bought a tractor at an estate auction in October. It was a 1976 Massie Ferguson 255.
35 horsepower, no cab, no loader, worn tires, 3,400 hours on the meter. It cost $4,100. Carl paid cash using money he’d saved from Ellen’s part-time income and from selling two more cows. The 255 was too small for the work Carl needed to do, but it was paid for, and Carl told himself that mattered more than capacity.
He used it to pull the manure spreader and drag feed to the bunker. For heavier jobs, moving big bales, loading silage, Carl borrowed a neighbor’s tractor and paid him $15 an hour, which felt expensive, but was cheaper than financing equipment he might lose. The deficiency debt and the money owed to his brother-in-law took Carl 3 years to pay off.
He sent his brother-in-law $100 a month until 1990. He paid the bank $120 a month until 1989. During those years, Carl didn’t buy any equipment he couldn’t pay for outright. When the 255 starter motor failed in 1989, Carl rebuilt it himself using parts from a salvage yard. When his manure spreader’s apron chain broke in 1991, Carl welded the links back together instead of replacing the chain.
He became meticulous about maintenance, checking oil levels daily, greasing xerks weekly, storing equipment inside, even when it meant shuffling machines around the shed like puzzle pieces. The care extended the life of what he owned, but it also narrowed his capacity. Carl couldn’t expand.
He couldn’t take on custom work. He couldn’t respond to opportunities that required equipment he didn’t have. In 1993, a neighboring farm came up for sale. 80 acres with a decent barn and a house that needed work. The price was $67,000, which was reasonable, and the land bordered Carl’s property, which meant he could farm it without moving equipment on public roads.
Carl wanted it. Ellen ran the numbers. They had $11,000 in savings. A bank would likely finance the rest if Carl’s operation showed consistent income. But when Carl applied for the loan, the bank reviewed his credit history and noted the 1987 repossession and the deficiency settlement. The loan officer said it wasn’t disqualifying, but it raised questions about Carl’s risk management.
He asked Carl to explain what had happened. Carl explained. The loan officer said he understood, but the bank would require a 25% down payment instead of the standard 15%. which meant Carl needed 16,750. Carl didn’t have 16,750. He withdrew his application. The farm sold to an outofstate investor who leased it to a larger operation.
Michael graduated high school in 1989 and enrolled in the university’s a program. He came home summers to help, but he’d made it clear he wasn’t coming back to the dairy. Carl didn’t blame him. Ben graduated in 1993 and took a job with an insurance company downstate. He visited twice a year. Carl milked alone most mornings by 1995, Ellen helping when her work schedule allowed.
The herd had shrunk to 38 cows. Margins were tighter than they’d ever been. Milk prices had improved slightly, but costs had climbed faster. Carl was 61 years old and his back hurt most days and the farm that had supported his father for 40 years was barely supporting him. In 1998, Carl’s 255 threw a rod through the engine block.
The tractor had logged over 7,000 hours under Carl’s ownership, far beyond what a machine that size should have carried. But Carl had needed it to do more than it was built for, and metal only tolerates so much. The repair estimate was $2,800. The 255 wasn’t worth $2,800. Carl scrapped it and bought another used tractor, a 1981 Massie Ferguson 230, smaller still with a rusted exhaust and a steering column that pulled left.
It cost $3,200. Carl used it for 6 years. People in the township remembered the 398. Not everyone, but enough. Farmers talk and repossession is the kind of story that gets mentioned at the feed mill or the co-op when someone asks how soand so is doing. Carl never brought it up, but it followed him in quiet ways.
When Ron Whitman retired in 2001 and his son took over the dealership, the son visited farms in the area to introduce himself. He stopped at Carl’s place. Carl showed him around and the son mentioned casually that his father still felt bad about what had happened. Carl said it wasn’t Ron’s fault.
The son agreed, but said his father had thought about it for years. Carl thanked him for stopping by. After the son left, Ellen asked Carl how it made him feel, knowing people remembered. Carl said it didn’t matter. But that night, he sat at the kitchen table longer than usual, and Ellen didn’t ask him to come to bed.
In 2004, Carl sold the dairy herd. Milk prices had collapsed again and Carl’s body couldn’t keep up with the work. He was 70 years old. He sold the cows, the milking equipment, and the bulk tank. He leased his land to a younger farmer who ran beef cattle and paid Carl $4,500 a year. Carl kept the house. He kept the 230.
Ellen retired from the clerk’s office. They lived on social security, Ellen’s small pension, and the lease income. It was enough, but just barely. Carl saw another Massie Ferguson 398 in 2007. He was at a farm show in Madison walking through the used equipment area when he came across one sitting on a dealer’s lot.
It was a later model, maybe a 1989 with more hours than his had carried when they’d taken it, but it was the same machine, red and silver, loader arms folded, the kind of tractor that makes work manageable instead of exhausting. Carl stood next to it for a while. A salesman approached and asked if he was interested. Carl said no, he was just looking.
The salesman asked if Carl had ever owned one. Carl said he had a long time ago. The salesman said they were good tractors, reliable, well-built. Carl agreed. He walked away before the conversation could go further. Ellen died in 2011 after a stroke. Carl buried her in the township cemetery next to his parents. Michael came back for the funeral. Ben came back.
They stayed three days. Michael asked his father if he wanted to move closer to him, maybe sell the farm and get an apartment. Carl said no. The farm was paid off. The land was leased. He had what he needed. Michael didn’t push. Carl lived alone for the next 6 years, keeping the yard mowed and the driveway plowed, using the 230 to pull a small trailer when he needed to haul firewood or move something too heavy to carry.
The tractor was 42 years old by then, older than some of the people farming in the township, and it still started most mornings if Carl was patient with the choke. In 2017, Carl had a heart attack while splitting wood behind the shed. A neighbor found him two hours later and called an ambulance.
Carl survived, but the doctor said his heart was weak and living alone wasn’t safe. Michael drove up and spent a week sorting through options. Carl agreed to move into an assisted living facility in town. Michael hired an auction company to sell the farm’s contents. The 230 sold for $1,850. The buyer was a hobby farmer from Minnesota who said he liked older Massie Fergusons because they were simple and honest. Carl wasn’t there when it sold.
He’d already moved to the facility. Michael handled everything. Carl lived in the assisted living facility for 4 years. He had a small room with a window that looked out on a parking lot. Michael visited once a month. Ben visited twice a year. Carl didn’t complain. He read the farm reports in the newspaper and watched the commodity prices even though he had no crops to sell.
In the spring of 2021, a nurse asked Carl if he’d been a farmer. Carl said yes. She said her grandfather had been a farmer, too, in Iowa, and he’d always talked about how hard it was. Carl agreed. She asked if he missed it. Carl thought about it. He said sometimes. Carl Hendrickx died on November 9th, 2021 at the age of 77. Michael and Ben arranged a small funeral. 17 people attended.
The pastor, who hadn’t known Carl well, spoke about stewardship and legacy and the dignity of work. He didn’t mention the 398. He didn’t mention the repossession. He didn’t mention the 34 years Carl had spent running equipment that was too small and too old because he’d made one decision in 1985 that had cost him the ability to make another.
After the service, Michael and Ben sold the farm. It brought $340,000. After taxes and fees, each of them received $157,000. Neither of them became farmers. Ron Whitman attended the funeral. He was 83 years old and walked with a cane. After the service, he stood in the parking lot and told Michael that he’d always respected Carl’s integrity.
Michael thanked him. Ron said that selling the 398 to Carl had been one of the transactions he’d thought about most over the years, not because Carl had defaulted, but because Ron had known, even in 1985, that the margins were thin and the risk was real, and he’d sold it anyway because that was the business.
Michael said he understood. Ron nodded and left. The Massie Ferguson 398 that Carl had owned from March to August of 1987 changed hands four more times after the auction. It worked on farms in Illinois, Iowa, and southern Minnesota. In 2019, a farmer in Minnesota sold it to a collector who restored older Massie Ferguson equipment.
The collector replaced the hydraulic lines, rebuilt the loader, repainted the sheet metal, and displayed it at a farm show in 2020. The tractor looked new. No one viewing it would have known that that 33 years earlier it had been driven onto a flatbed by a man who’ believed financing it was necessary and who’d spent the rest of his life proving to himself that nothing ever was.