Tractor enthusiast preserves history

Wes Wittman stands with a remodeled antique tractor, a 1952 Ford 8N. Amy Alonzo Rozak/Union Democrat, copyright 2009

The local veterinarian and fair board member is also an antique-tractor enthusiast  whose specimens will be on display during the fair’s late-June run.
 

The Mother Lode Fair theme this year, “Harvesting the Good Times,” is a salute to the tractor, much to Wittman’s delight.

“It’s a hobby that takes me back to my childhood,” Wittman said. “My grandfather was a mechanic. He instilled a love for working with engines in my father, who passed it down to me and other members of my family.”

Wittman, of Columbia, recalls rebuilding small engines and carburetors beside his engineer father as a child. Now he restores tractors with his brother, Eric, brother-in-law, Brian Marack, and 30-year-old son, Dustin.

“My brother and I probably have 18 to 20 tractors between us in all stages of repair,” Wittman said. “We will have seven or eight of them on display at the fair.”

In addition to operating Mono Way Veterinary Hospital in East Sonora, he is serving his second term as president of the fair’s board of directors.

“It’s only right that our fair be dedicated to agriculture’s beast of burden,” said Fair Manager Jan Haydn-Myer. “That’s what the tractor has become.”

Wittman said his hobby dates back to about the same time he became a member of the fair board, some 12 years ago.

“My brother, Eric, and I went to an antique tractor show in Tulare, and that got me interested,” Wittman said. “I found my first tractor in Escalon, a 1943 World War II-era John Deere. “It was in boxes, but being war-era made it special. They didn’t make many of them during that time.”

He has restored several tractors since then.

As a large-animal veterinarian, he often sees old tractors as he makes his rounds at area ranches, and returns later to make offers on them.

“It’s a labor of love,” he said. “When each one’s finished, you know you have brought something back to life that was ready for the junkyard and saved a piece of our agricultural history.”