Massey Harris tractors bring back memories at Milverton NEAT breakfast

Irene Lantz drove her restored, 45-horsepower Massey Harris 44 to the NEAT breakfast in Milverton last week. Her husband, Lorne, joined her aboard his recently purchased, 53-horsepower Oliver 1550. Gary West photo

By Gary West

A pair of Massey Harris enthusiasts had plenty to talk about when the North Easthope Antique Tractor Club (NEAT) travelled to Milverton for a fundraising breakfast last week.

Irene Lantz and her husband, Lorne, drove their antique tractors from their farm west of Wellesley to the breakfast at Main Street-St. Pauls United Church on a perfect, sunny morning.

Lantz is particularly fond of her Massey Harris 44, a tractor she remembers driving as a young girl on her parents’ farm.

The couple still lives and farms on the homestead of Lantz’s late parents, Hugh and Edith Forest, near the border of Wellesley and North Easthope townships.

The Massey Harris 44 has deep roots in Lantz’s family. Her father purchased the tractor at her grandfather Lupton’s farm sale. Lantz’s mother, Edith Lupton, was raised on the Lupton family farm near Maplewood in Oxford County.

Now spanning three generations of family history, the Massey Harris was once a workhorse on the Forest farm. It was used for harvesting, plowing and cultivating, as well as powering the hammer mill used to prepare feed for the family’s Ayrshire dairy herd.

The family’s agricultural tradition continues today. Lantz and Lorne’s daughter, Kim, and her husband, Paul Hyatt, along with their two daughters, milk a herd of registered Jerseys on their dairy farm south of Poole. The family also exhibits its cattle at fall fairs, including the Stratford Fall Fair.

NEAT members arrived at the Milverton breakfast on 27 antique tractors of various makes and models, ranging from roughly 25 to 65 horsepower. Other members travelled from farther afield by vehicle to support the church fundraiser.