BROOKINGS — When you’ve lived for 94 years and change, you can’t help but fall in love with at least some of the experiences along the way — and for Lyle Monsees of Brookings, one of those loves revolves around Oliver tractors.

It started innocently enough, with his Dad purchasing a new 1949 Oliver 77 tractor and allowing a then-teenage Monsees to drive it from Sioux Falls out to the farm near Ellis. It was something of a treat for the recent high school graduate.

“I always liked driving it,” he said.

From that experience, an enthusiasm sprouted that would span decades — but perhaps the seed was planted even earlier, when Monsees was a just a wee lad in the early 1930s.

“I barely caught the steam engine time. I remember when I was quite small — maybe 2 or 3 or 4 — my sister got all excited because a steam engine came into the driveway off the road pulling a threshing machine,” he said. “I saw it go by and I thought, ‘My, that’s big and impressive.’ That kind of whetted my interest for the rest of my life.”

It’s understandable that something like that would leave an impression on a young boy in any era — but especially so for one growing up in South Dakota during the Great Depression. Born on Dec. 14, 1930, memories of those formative years remain firmly etched in Monsees’ mind.

“Those were very, very poor, hard-up times,” he said. “The Great Depression started about the time I was born or so, and nobody had money. They didn’t have television (or) radio — the big event (was) church on Sunday.”

Monsees and his family persevered — and perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising, what with the family’s roots stretching back to his grandfather’s time in Ellis prior to South Dakota’s statehood in 1889 when the area was still known as Dakota Territory. Those years, from the 1880s to the 1930s and beyond, also saw a change in how the land was made more amenable to farming — from the early brute strength of animal-provided muscle power slicing through the sod to a more mechanized power approach involving steam, gasoline and diesel fuel.

In time, Monsees would follow his father into agriculture, buying property just south of Brookings in 1968, near the “S” curve on old Highway 77, also known as 471^st Avenue. Before that, though, he served his nation in the U.S. Air Force from 1952 to 1956, with an additional four years in the reserves.

“Why did I choose it? Well, it was thought to be an obligation at the time,” Monsees said. “And if it wasn’t an obligation, there was a draft then for the last part of the Korean War, and so I probably would have gotten drafted if I hadn’t enlisted anyway.”

Practical reasoning, yes, but there was also another reason for joining: The inspiration provided by an older brother, 14 years his senior, who served in World War II in Europe in the U.S. Army Air Force as a mechanic for P-38, P-47 and P-51 fighter planes. Monsees said his brother served for about 24 years, starting with propeller-driven aircraft and finishing with jet-powered birds.

Monsees also earned degrees — first from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City in 1959 and later a master’s degree from the University of Southern California — in part thanks to the benefits provided by the G.I. Bill.

The life he had before having his own farm — military, education and working for employers including Hughes Aircraft — took him all over the country, from Illinois to California to Florida.

 “That was a good job,” he said of his five years at Hughes, adding that aspects of it involved installing radar systems on U.S. Navy ships, including the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise.

A job opportunity at South Dakota State University in Brookings presented itself in 1966, and so Monsees returned to his home state. This enabled him to spend time with and help his parents as well, since they were still on their farm near Sioux Falls.

He later took on biomedical engineering work at with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Minneapolis to generate a little extra income. He would drive to Minneapolis every Monday morning, and then return to Brookings the following Friday.

It was while doing VA work in Minneapolis that he bought the farm at 21709 471^st Ave., where he still lives today.

“(I) ran the farm on the weekend,” Monsees said. “My kids got to grow up on a farm, which I thought was worthwhile — I don’t know if they agree with me, but maybe.”

He has four children altogether, and he’s rightfully proud of them.

“Of course, my sons are handsome and my daughters are beautiful,” he boasted, adding that they’ve blessed him with grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well.

A farm, of course, needs tractors. And this is where Monsees’ love for Olivers comes back into the picture, because the machines not only earned their keep on the acreage, but as showpieces in area parades as well — from Brookings to Prairie Village near Madison to Menno, Humboldt and more.

A tractor sputtering out unexpectedly half-way through the Fourth of July parade in Brookings a few years ago was one of Monsees’ favorite memories.

“The tractor I was driving ran out of gas,” he said. “So, a couple guys pushed me — it just happened right by a gas station — pushed me up to the pump and threw a few gallons of gas in and took off and got back in the parade.”

Monsees also told a tale of the parades at Prairie Village, which is 2 miles west of Madison, that typically took place the third weekend in August as part of the Steam Threshing Jamboree — and that he made a point of participating in for 20 years.

“They had a lot of old equipment there in the parade that I had worked with when I was working on the farm with Dad when I was in my teens,” he said. “I knew something about it, so I thought that was interesting.”

Lastly, ice cream factors into Monsees’ memories of the Menno Pioneer Power Show.

“It was one of the last parades of the season. They had good grounds there and they had for treats a steam engine-powered ice cream maker they had cobbled together,” he recalled. “They ran three ice cream makers — the old crank type with the ice and the salt and the home-stirred ice cream — and I always enjoyed that kind of ice cream when I could get it, so that made it a little more interesting to me.”

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and so it was with Monsees’ tractors. An auction for the tractors — 16 Olivers ranging from 1939 to 1973 — and other goods took place on Oct. 25 at his farm, and was overseen by Wieman Land & Auction of Marion.

It turned out to be a hit with the buyers, but especially for one of them. How so? Well, the Oliver the man bought once belonged to his father.

Now that’s sharing the Oliver love, from one family to another.

— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.