His Dad Left Him a Paid-Off Farm and Old Equipment… His Cousin Got Debt and New Tractors

The reading of Curtis Holloway’s will took place on a gray February morning in 1971, within the office of Thomas Brennan, attorney at law, situated above the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Hawarden, Iowa.

Hawarden sat in the far northwestern corner of Iowa, in Sioux County, where the Big Sioux River forms a border with South Dakota. It was a landscape of flat, rich farmland capable of producing corn and soybeans that could rival the output of anywhere in the Midwest.

Curtis had died at sixty-eight after a short battle with lung cancer, leaving behind two sons: Raymond, who was forty-one, and a nephew he had raised like a son after his own brother died in the Korean War, Danny, who was thirty-nine.

Both men had farmed with Curtis for years, expecting that they would eventually inherit the operation together. What they did not expect was the stark, polarizing way in which Curtis had chosen to divide everything he had built over a lifetime.

Raymond was bequeathed the original 320 acres, paid off completely—not a penny owed to any bank—along with all the equipment Curtis owned. This included a 1949 John Deere Model A, a 1958 John Deere 620, a 1962 40-foot corn planter, a 1955 grain drill, two wagons, a bulk oil rig that had seen better days, and an assortment of discs, plows, and cultivators that ranged from serviceable to nearly worthless.

The land was valued at approximately $112,000, or about $350 an acre, which was considered fair for Sioux County in 1971. The equipment, if you were being generous, might fetch $8,000 at auction. In total, the inheritance amounted to roughly $120,000, consisting entirely of equity and carrying zero debt.

Danny, however, was given entirely different terms. Curtis had stipulated that Danny would receive the rights to 320 acres of land that Curtis had been renting from a widow named Eleanor Voss for the past fifteen years.

This came with a provision that Mrs. Voss had agreed to sell the land at $380 per acre, which was a friendly price, roughly 10% below the actual market value. The will included a cashier’s check for $25,000 to serve as a down payment, with Danny responsible for financing the remaining $96,400.

Additionally, Danny received authorization to purchase through the estate a brand-new International Harvester 1066 tractor and associated modern equipment, to be financed through the John Deere dealer in town.

Ironically, Curtis had arranged the financing through their competitor. It seemed like a total package: potentially more land value when fully paid and brand-new equipment—but it left Danny saddled with approximately $115,000 in debt at interest rates that were already climbing past 7.5%.

Before we go any further, you need to understand what a 1949 John Deere Model A and a 1958 Model 620 actually were, because this is central to everything that happened next.

The Model A was first introduced in 1934 and produced until 1952, representing John Deere’s most popular row-crop tractor of its era. By 1949, the Model A was putting out about 38 horsepower at the belt, running on gasoline or all-fuel with a four-speed transmission and a two-cylinder engine that made a distinctive “pop-pop-pop” sound that old-timers still talk about with reverence.

It weighed around 5,200 pounds and could pull a two-bottom plow in decent soil. By 1971, a 1949 model was twenty-two years old—ancient by the standard of modern farming. But these tractors were built like anvils and could run damn near forever if you maintained them.

The 620 was part of John Deere’s numbered series, introduced in the late 1950s as a transitional model between the letter series and the “New Generation” tractors that would revolutionize the industry in the 1960s.

The 620 produced about 43 horsepower. It was still a two-cylinder design with that distinctive sound, but it featured more modern amenities like live hydraulics and an improved electrical system. In 1971, a 1958 model was thirteen years old—outdated, perhaps, but still entirely functional.

Now, compare that to what Danny was authorized to buy: an International Harvester 1066. This was a beast of a completely different era. Introduced in 1971, the very year Curtis died, the 1066 was a turbocharged, six-cylinder diesel tractor putting out 125 horsepower.

It featured a cab with heat and air conditioning, power steering, an independent PTO, and could pull an eight-bottom plow through anything. It weighed over 15,000 pounds and cost approximately $13,800 brand new. This was a tractor that represented everything modern agriculture was becoming: bigger, faster, more powerful, more comfortable, and vastly more expensive.

The two cousins walked out of Thomas Brennan’s office that February morning into completely different futures, though neither fully understood the implications yet. Raymond felt cheated; he was a blood son, yet he had received the old stuff—the paid-off but tired equipment.

Meanwhile, Danny, whom Raymond loved but who wasn’t actually Curtis’s son, had been given a clear pathway to a modern operation. At the café across from the courthouse, where they sat in uncomfortable silence over coffee, Raymond finally voiced his frustrations.

“He gave you the future and gave me the past,” Raymond said. Danny, who felt guilty about the whole arrangement, tried to protest, but Raymond waved him off. “It’s done. Dad made his choice. We’ll both make it work.”

But Raymond couldn’t shake the bitterness. That night, talking to his wife Margaret in their modest farmhouse—the same house Curtis had raised him in—Raymond made a firm decision. “I’m not farming with junk my whole life just because Dad was too cheap to modernize. We have equity. We can leverage it.”

Margaret, who had grown up in town and didn’t understand farming the way Raymond did, trusted her husband’s judgment. “If that’s what you think we need to do,” she said, “then we do it.”

Within two months, Raymond had taken out a loan against his paid-off land: $45,000 at 8.25% interest through Farmers and Merchants Bank. He bought a used 1968 John Deere 4020, the tractor that had revolutionized farming in the mid-60s, with about 1,800 hours on it, for $11,000.

He bought a good six-row planter, a better bulk oil rig, upgraded his grain-handling equipment, and put the rest toward the operating expenses required for modern farming. He sold the Model A and the 620 at auction for a combined $3,200, which felt like getting pennies for relics.

Danny, meanwhile, moved forward with Curtis’s plan. He bought the Voss land, financed the $96,400 as stipulated, and purchased the International 1066 along with a full complement of modern implements.

His total debt package came to just over $115,000, with combined payments of roughly $1,200 a month. It was manageable—barely—if corn stayed above $1.10 a bushel and beans stayed above $3.

What neither cousin understood yet—and what perhaps Curtis had understood in a way he couldn’t articulate even in his will—was that they were about to live through an economic cycle that would prove who had really inherited the future and who had inherited the past.

The early 1970s were boom years for American agriculture. According to USDA Economic Research Service data, corn prices, which had averaged around a dollar a bushel in 1970, shot up to $1.57 in 1972, then to $2.55 in 1973, peaking at $3.02 in 1974.

Soybean prices followed a similar trajectory, hitting over $6 a bushel in 1973. The Soviet grain deal of 1972, where the USSR purchased huge quantities of American wheat and corn, created a commodities boom that made farmers rich on paper.

Land prices across Iowa climbed from an average of about $275 an acre in 1970 to over $600 by 1975. Equipment prices followed the same trajectory; that International 1066 that cost $13,800 in 1971 was selling for over $16,000 by 1974.

Both Raymond and Danny made money during these years—good money. Raymond’s operation, now fully modernized, was efficient and productive. His 4020 could work circles around those old two-cylinders, and his improved equipment meant he could farm more acres with less labor.

Danny’s 1066 was a powerhouse, allowing him to handle his 320 acres with ease and even take on custom work for neighbors, which helped offset his debt payments. But here is what production numbers and efficiency gains obscured: Raymond’s cost structure had fundamentally changed.

He now had debt service of about $435 a month on that $45,000 loan. His fuel costs were higher because the 4020, while more efficient per acre, consumed vastly more diesel than those old two-cylinders had consumed in gasoline.

His maintenance costs were higher because modern tractors, with their complex hydraulic systems and electrical components, required different levels of service. His property taxes were higher because the land was assessed at a higher value.

Danny’s cost structure was even more extreme. His monthly nut—just the debt service before any operating expenses—was over $1,200 every month. Whether he farmed or not, whether it rained or not, whether prices were good or bad, Danny owed $1,200. At 1971 prices, this was manageable. At 1973 prices, it was intoxicating. In the long run, it would be terrifying.

I want you to understand something critical here, and this comes from Federal Reserve agricultural lending reports from this era. The debt that farmers took on in the early 1970s wasn’t based on historical averages or conservative assumptions; it was based on the inflated prices of the moment.

The assumption was that those prices represented a new normal. Agricultural economists were proclaiming that the world had changed, that global demand for American grain would keep prices elevated indefinitely, and that the old boom-and-bust cycle of farming was over.

This was taught in universities and preached by extension agents; it was the conventional wisdom of the day. Curtis Holloway, who had farmed through the Great Depression and the lean years after World War II, had not believed it.

He had seen enough cycles to know that what goes up eventually comes down, but he died before he could explain his reasoning to his sons. His will, which seemed so arbitrary and so unfair to Raymond, was actually a carefully constructed lesson that he had hoped they would learn before it was too late.

By 1975, both cousins were doing well enough that the family tension had eased. At a Fourth of July gathering at the Sioux County Fairgrounds, Raymond actually apologized to Danny. “I was wrong about Dad’s will,” he admitted over a beer while their kids ran around the carnival.

“You got saddled with debt and I got a clean start. I’m sorry I was bitter about it.” Danny, whose operation was humming along profitably, brushed it off. “We’re both making it work. That’s what matters.” Neither of them could have known they were standing at the peak, looking down into a valley they could not yet see.

In 1976, corn prices began to soften, dropping back to around $2.15 a bushel. They were still profitable, but not the bonanza of 1973 to 1974. In 1977, they dropped to $2.02. In 1978, to $1.93. The decline was steady, gradual, and almost gentle—until it wasn’t.

By 1980, corn was back under $2 a bushel. The Soviet grain embargo that President Carter imposed in January 1980, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, killed the export market that had driven the boom.

Suddenly, the grain that had been flowing to overseas buyers was piling up in American elevators, driving prices down further. Simultaneously, interest rates were exploding. According to Federal Reserve data, the prime lending rate hit 15.25% in 1980 and would peak at over 20% in 1981.

Agricultural loans, which typically ran several points above prime, were pushing 18% to 20%. Farmers who had borrowed at 7% or 8% in the early ’70s were seeing their rates adjust upward on variable-rate loans or were forced to refinance at the new, devastating rates.

The land values that had climbed so steadily began to collapse. Iowa farmland that had peaked at over $1,000 an acre in some counties in 1981 would fall to under $600 by 1985. Farmers who borrowed against inflated land values found themselves “underwater,” owing more than their collateral was worth.

And the costs—fuel, fertilizer, seed, chemicals—they didn’t drop with commodity prices. Diesel that cost 85 cents a gallon in 1978 hit over $1.20 by 1980. Anhydrous ammonia, which farmers needed for corn production, had tripled in price since the early ’70s.

Farmers were caught in a vise: falling income, rising costs, and crushing debt service. Danny started missing payments in late 1980, not because he was lazy or incompetent, but because the mathematics simply didn’t work anymore.

At $1.80 corn and the costs he was facing, he couldn’t generate enough cash flow to cover his $1,200 monthly debt service plus operating expenses. He tried to refinance in early 1981, but the bank—now under different management than when Curtis had done business there—looked at his debt-to-asset ratio and the falling land values and said no.

They wanted him to sell equipment, reduce his debt load, and prove he could survive. Danny sold the International 1066 in the spring of 1981 for $8,000—about half what he had paid for it ten years earlier and less than half what it would have cost new.

He bought a used John Deere 4020 for $4,500 and tried to restructure his operation, but it was too late. The debt was too deep, the income too thin. In November 1982, Farmers and Merchants Bank foreclosed on the Voss land.

Danny lost everything except his pride and a bitter understanding of how thin the margin between success and failure really was in modern agriculture. Raymond’s situation was different, but only by degrees.

He had borrowed less than Danny—$45,000 instead of $115,000—and his debt service was correspondingly lower. But he was still carrying monthly payments of about $435 at the new, higher interest rates, and his cost structure was still built around modern equipment and modern inputs.

When corn dropped below $2, Raymond was making money on his crops but losing it to his debt service and operating costs. Here is what Raymond did that probably saved him, though it required a great deal of humility.

In 1981, he went to an estate auction for a farmer three miles away who had gone under. At that auction, he bought two tractors for a combined $1,200. One was a 1951 John Deere Model A, nearly identical to the one his father had left him and he had sold in 1971.

The other was a 1959 John Deere 630, slightly newer than the 620 he had also sold. Raymond sold his 4020 for $6,800 and used the money to pay down his loan principal. Then, he went back to farming the way his father had farmed.

He used old, paid-off equipment that cost next to nothing to maintain, that sipped fuel instead of guzzling it, and that he could repair himself with basic tools and determination. His neighbors thought he had lost his mind.

Here it was, 1981, and Raymond Holloway was farming with tractors from the Korean War era while everyone else was trying to stay modern. But Raymond had done the math. His debt service on a reduced loan was now under $300 a month.

His fuel costs had dropped by 60%. His maintenance costs had dropped even further because he was no longer paying dealer service rates for hydraulic repairs and electrical diagnostics. He was fixing everything himself with wrenches and determination.

At $1.80 corn, with that cost structure, Raymond could survive. Barely, but he could survive. This pattern repeated across every agricultural state in America. According to USDA census data, the United States lost over 235,000 farms between 1980 and 1985.

In Iowa specifically, there were thousands of foreclosures. The social fabric of rural communities was shredded; there were suicides, divorces, and families that had farmed the same land for generations forced to walk away with nothing.

Every economic detail I am sharing with you—the interest rates, the commodity prices, the land values—is pulled from Federal Reserve reports, USDA databases, and contemporary news accounts. This isn’t folklore; it is documented history.

The lesson embedded in Curtis Holloway’s will, the one that seemed so unfair to Raymond in 1971, became crystal clear by 1983. Curtis had given Raymond the gift of equity and low costs; he had given Danny the curse of debt and high costs, even though it looked like the modern, ambitious inheritance.

Curtis could not have known exactly when or how severely the market would turn, but he knew it would turn. He had seen it before, and he had structured his will to teach his sons—one through protection, one through hard experience.

Debt in agriculture is a chain that can strangle you when the market shifts. By 1985, when the worst of the crisis had passed, Raymond was still farming his 320 acres. His loan was paid off completely; he had made aggressive payments during the early ’80s, living on almost nothing and putting every spare dollar toward the principal.

He was farming with a 1951 Model A, a 1959 630, and equipment that was older than some of his grandchildren, but he was farming debt-free on land he owned outright. Danny had moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he got a job at a John Deere dealership in the parts department.

The irony wasn’t lost on him: selling parts for tractors he could no longer afford to own, helping farmers maintain equipment while his own operation had been liquidated. He was forty-six years old and starting over.

He wasn’t angry at Curtis—not anymore. He understood that Curtis had tried to teach him something. He had set up a structure where Danny would either learn to manage debt carefully or learn through losing everything. Danny had learned the hard way.

Here is something that doesn’t get talked about enough when we discuss the 1980s farm crisis: the farmers who survived weren’t necessarily the best farmers in terms of yield or efficiency. They were the farmers with the lowest cost structures and the least debt.

According to agricultural economists who studied this period, the correlation between survival and low debt-to-asset ratios was almost perfect. If you owed more than 50% of your farm’s value, you probably lost it. If you owed less than 30%, you probably survived.

Curtis Holloway had structured his will to create a 0% debt inheritance for Raymond and a nearly 75% debt situation for Danny. He had done it deliberately, though his reasoning died with him.

My best understanding, from talking to people who knew Curtis and from studying the patterns of farmers of his generation, is that Curtis loved both boys equally but understood them differently. Raymond was cautious by nature and conservative—the kind of man who would maintain what he was given.

Danny was ambitious and aggressive—the kind of man who would always want to grow and expand. Curtis gave Raymond protection from his own caution and gave Danny a test of his own ambition.

The 1951 Model A that Raymond bought at auction in 1981 is still running. I know this because I’ve seen it. Raymond is ninety-four years old now, still living in that same farmhouse, though his son farms the operation now.

The Model A sits in the machine shed, meticulously maintained, occasionally fired up for farm shows and parades where old-timers gather to remember when farming was done with two-cylinder John Deeres that you could fix with a hammer and some swearing.

Raymond’s son, Curtis Jr., named after his grandfather, farms 960 acres now, having bought adjacent land during the farm crisis years when prices bottomed out. The operation is modern, efficient, and carries manageable debt for equipment and operating expenses.

But the original 320 acres remain the core, the foundation, and the paid-off base that allows the family to survive market downturns without existential fear. Danny eventually bought a small acreage outside Sioux Falls, about 20 acres, where he runs a few cattle and a big garden.

He never got back into commercial farming. He retired from the John Deere dealership in 2006 and spends his time now woodworking and spoiling grandchildren. When I talked to him for this story, he said something that stuck with me.

“I don’t blame Uncle Curtis. He tried to teach me something I was too stubborn to learn until it was too late. He knew I’d expand, that I’d leverage, that I’d chase the growth. He set it up so I could do that, but with guardrails. I just didn’t see them until I’d already crashed through.”

The International Harvester 1066 that Danny bought new in 1971 and sold in 1981? I tracked it down. It is owned now by a collector in Nebraska who restores classic farm equipment. It has been completely rebuilt, painted show-quality red, and it appears at antique tractor shows.

People marvel at the engineering and power of that era. The collector told me he paid $8,000 for it in rough condition in the late 1990s and has put another $12,000 into the restoration. “These 1066s were magnificent machines,” he said.

“But they bankrupted a lot of farmers who bought them at the wrong time. The tractor wasn’t the problem; the timing and the debt were the problem.” That is the lesson, isn’t it? The equipment, the land, the farming practices—none of it matters as much as the financial structure underneath it all.

You can farm with the most modern, efficient equipment in the world, but if you’re carrying too much debt when a market turns, you’re done. You can farm with ancient, outdated equipment that is less efficient, but if you own it outright and your land is paid off, you can survive almost anything.

This principle applies beyond farming. It applies to any business, any family, and any financial decision where debt is involved. The question isn’t whether you can afford the payments when times are good; the question is whether you can afford the payments when times turn bad.

Because times always turn bad eventually. The cycle is inevitable. And the people who structure their operations, their businesses, and their lives to survive the downturns—those are the people who build generational wealth and stability.

Raymond Holloway told me something when we sat on his porch last summer, looking out over fields that his father had farmed and that his grandfather had broken from the prairie.

“People think my dad was being unfair when he split the inheritance the way he did. They think he favored Danny over me, or that he didn’t trust me to handle the modern stuff. But I understand now what he was doing.”

“He was giving me the ability to fail without losing everything. He was giving Danny the ability to succeed spectacularly if he could manage it, but with the risk that came with that opportunity. Dad knew that farming isn’t about the equipment or the yield or how much land you control.”

“It’s about still being there when the dust settles.” Still being there when the dust settles. That is the whole game, isn’t it? The model of agriculture that dominated the 1970s and drove expansion—get big or get out, leverage your equity, economy of scale, modern equipment, maximum efficiency—worked brilliantly for about eight years.

And then it destroyed the people who bought into it most completely. The farmers who had been cautious, who had resisted the pressure to expand, who had farmed with paid-off equipment and conservative practices—they looked backward and foolish until suddenly they looked like geniuses.

Curtis Holloway never said he was a genius. He was just a man who had lived through enough cycles to know they come again. He couldn’t tell his sons when or how, but he could structure his legacy to give them the best chance of surviving it.

Raymond got the structure; Danny got the lesson. Both were gifts, though only one felt like it at the time. In 2019, Raymond’s son, Curtis Jr., bought his cousin Danny’s son a tractor.

Danny’s boy, also named Curtis, interestingly, had been working construction in Sioux Falls, but he wanted to try his hand at farming. He had saved up some money, his wife had a good job in town, and they found a small acreage they could afford.

Curtis Jr. bought him a 1955 John Deere Model 70—a two-cylinder tractor from the same era as the ones his grandfather had left in 1971—for $3,500 at an estate auction.

“Start with something you own,” Curtis Jr. told his cousin. “Something that won’t bury you if you have a bad year. Something you can fix yourself when it breaks. Build from there if you can, but start solid.”

That is a legacy passing down now to the fourth generation—not a specific tractor model or farming practice, but a philosophy. Own what you farm before you farm what you owe.

It is the lesson Curtis Holloway tried to teach in 1971; the one Raymond learned by almost ignoring it; the one Danny learned by losing everything. And somewhere in northwestern Iowa, that 1951 Model A still starts on the first crank.

It still makes that distinctive two-cylinder “pop” sound that old-timers remember, and it still runs on a few gallons of gas when modern tractors burn tens of gallons of diesel. It is not efficient. It is not fast. It is not comfortable, or powerful, or impressive.

But it is paid for. And in farming, sometimes that matters more than everything else combined. It is the story of two cousins, two inheritances, and one father who understood that sometimes the greatest gift you can give is an opportunity.

It is protection from your own ambition during the years when ambition becomes catastrophe. It is the wisdom to know that the most valuable asset you can possess is not the equipment you operate, but the freedom that comes from being debt-free when the world changes.

In the quiet of the Iowa plains, the legacy of Curtis Holloway remains a testament to the idea that stability is a choice, not just a matter of luck. It reminds us that while technology changes, human nature—and the market cycles that follow—remains remarkably consistent.

As the sun sets over the fields that the Holloways have tended for over a century, the faint, rhythmic pulse of an old engine is more than just sound. It is the heartbeat of a family that learned how to weather the storm by refusing to build their house on the shifting sands of borrowed wealth.

The history of the farm crisis is a mirror held up to our own financial lives, reflecting the consequences of living beyond our means and the immense value of patience and prudence. It serves as a reminder to every generation that the ultimate goal is not just growth, but longevity.

Every piece of rust on that 1951 Model A tells a story of survival, of a man who chose the hard, slow road over the fast, dangerous one. And in that choice, he found a security that no high-performance machine could ever provide.

For those who listen closely to the stories of the past, there is a wealth of knowledge waiting to be reclaimed. It is a quiet, steady wisdom that values resilience over speed and ownership over access.

In an era of instant gratification and easy credit, the Holloway legacy stands as a challenge to reevaluate our relationship with debt. It asks us to consider what we are truly building and whether it is strong enough to withstand the inevitable downturns that every cycle eventually brings.

Ultimately, the most successful business is the one that is still here to see the next generation take the wheel. It is the one that has managed its risks, secured its foundation, and kept its focus on the long term.

Curtis Holloway knew that. He knew that the true measure of success wasn’t in the peak of the boom, but in the depths of the bust. He knew that if you could survive the hardest times, you would be the one to thrive when the season finally turned in your favor again.

And so, the story of the cousins remains a vital chapter in the history of American agriculture, a story that resonates far beyond the borders of Sioux County. It is a story about the choices we make and the inheritance we leave for those who come after us.

It is a story about understanding the difference between the noise of the moment and the enduring truth of the cycle. It is a story that proves, perhaps more than anything else, that the greatest legacy is not what we leave in our bank accounts, but the principles we instill in our children.

May we all have the wisdom of Curtis Holloway—to look ahead, to prepare for the inevitable, and to recognize that the best path forward is often the one that keeps us grounded, secure, and truly free.