The Old Willys That Raised Me: A Truck, a Farm, and a Family Legacy

My 1955 Willys Truck spent the first 23 years of its life on my Granddad’s farm in western Kansas south of Colby. He purchased the Willys Truck new from his brother who owned Herb’s Auto Sales in Hillsboro, Kansas. The truck came with the 2-226 engine and a rear mounted P.T.O. This was the same year I was born.

The truck spent several years pulling a 20-foot boom sprayer across his farm ground spraying herbicide to eradicate bindweed (Morning Glory). The farm had been declared a bindweed farm by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, which entitled him to obtain free 55-gallon barrels of 2.4 D herbicide from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. The truck, in low range 4-wheel drive, traveled many miles while towing the sprayer, which took a toll on the engine. It had to be rebuilt at 30,000 miles. 

When I was 8 years old, I learned to drive the old Willys. Granddad took me out to a pasture, put it in low range 1st gear and showed me how to shut the engine off if I needed to. I spent the next couple hours in the Willys wandering around the pasture.

In the late 60’s and early 70’s, I spent my summers helping on the farm. The old Willys towed an irrigation pipe trailer while we laid 8-inch-16-foot-long aluminum gated irrigation pipes along the end of his corn fields, to provide water to irrigate the corn field. I would put the truck in low range-2nd gear, with the truck idling forward, I would hop out, run back to the front of the trailer, and unload a section of pipe with Granddad lifting the rear section of the pipe. We would drop the pipe and set it. Then, I would jog back to the driver’s side door reach in through the driver’s window and adjust the direction of travel. We repeated this process till we had a quarter mile of pipe laid.

In the spring we would apply anhydrous ammonia to his corn fields. The old Willys would pull the 4 wheeled trailers weighing 13,000 pounds thru the fields to be attached to the fertilizer applicator. I would go pick up the full trailer at the CO-OP. Starting out in low range with the front hubs unlocked. Shifting up thru the 3 gears in low range and then, repeating the shifting pattern again in high range. It took quite a while to get the load up to 25 miles an hour.

I spent several nights sleeping in the bed of the truck. I had the chore of going out to check on the end sprinkler head of the circle irrigation system to make sure it shut off and came back on as it traversed the portion of the circle that butted up to a county highway. If the end gun sprinkler did not shut off and the sheriff found water on the highway, it was a $500 fine.
 
In the fall the P.T.O. on the rear of the truck was used to power a 100-bushel single axle auger wagon which was used for filling the wheat drill.
 
Several years later while visiting the farm the old Willys was not in its usual spot next to the shop. I asked Grandad where was the old Willys. He had it stored in a shed and said he was going haul it off to the junk yard in the spring.

I said I would buy it from him. He said you can have it. The following spring of 1978 my sister and I towed the old Willys to Manhattan, KS.  I was living in the dorm at the time and only had one parking spot. My sister was living in a sorority house and was eligible for a parking spot. The old Willys spent the spring of 1978 parked in the sorority house parking lot. Only got in trouble one time with the sorority house mother. She questioned my keeping the truck on their lot. When I told her who my sister was, she said OK but you are definitely bending the rules.

February of 1979, I rebuilt the engine in a garage with no heat. Several times I almost gave up. Eventually finished the engine and transmission overhaul. I also installed a Warn Overdrive, removing the P.T.O. unit from the back of the transfer case since the Willys was no longer a farm truck. During the summer of 1986, I sanded and repainted the truck. That fall I was asked to help a young lady from church move from her parent’s home into an apartment. She went crazy over the newly repainted old Willys. We started dating. We got married a year later. 3 girls and 38 years of marriage the old Truck has been a part of the family. There were several times I was tempted to sell the Willys as I could not justify spending money on it when I had 4 mouths to feed. Needless to say, when the topic selling the Willys was brought up I had a major mutiny on my hands. So, it sat for a while in the garage, loved but not drive-able.

Several years ago, I replaced our concrete front porch. I used the old Willys to haul off the concrete rubble. When I drove across the truck scale at the ready-mix plant where I was hauling the rubble to, the scale operator was shocked that I crossed the scale hauling 2,252 pounds. While I was paying the scale operator for the load, several of the cement truck drivers who were sitting around drinking coffee and commented on the weight I had brought in on the old Willys. I smiled and said it is rated as a one-ton truck.

Now that I am retired, I have begun fixing up the old truck again make things look fixed not just let’s get it running again. The old Willys will never be a show truck but it is loved and used but not abused.

- Robert Friesen

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