The U.S. Custom Harvesters Hall of Fame

INDUCTEES OF USCHI HALL OF FAME

Walter & Ruth Olsen, Underwood, ND - (2004)

Walter & Ruth Olson were nominated to the Hall of Fame by Eric & Lona Johnson.

Walter started his custom harvest business in 1954, with one machine, hauling it from North Dakota to Kansas to help his wife’s uncle cut wheat. He soon added another machine and went further down to southwest Oklahoma.

After about four years, Walter’s wife Ruth started to go along on the harvest. She became a vital part of the operation, doing laundry for the men, cooking, and running for parts and supplies. This made for a much more efficient operation.

It became quite obvious how much a part of each community the Olson’s had become. We would hear people say that it just would not seem like harvest if the Olson’s weren’t there.

Walter made a very difficult decision in 2001, after having a stroke and then breaking his hip within a couple of months. It was all getting to be a bit much. So he sold the machines to Eric & Lona. As an added bonus, he worked very hard at his recovery and came along on the harvest the next year and drove truck for them, not asking for anything in return. The next year he sold them the trucks and still comes along to help out.

Considering at 87 years and having some health problems lately, he is hoping that 2003 will not have been his last harvest. This is one of Walter’s most significant contributions to the harvest industry, in that now my family continues the legacy he started almost 50 years ago.

Walter has cut for some families for up to three generations, and some of the same fields for more than 40 years. Sometimes when crops weren’t very good-and prices not much better he has been patient for his pay, and on some really poor fields, maybe no charge at all; yet he always paid his local suppliers before leaving for his next job.

Walter was always involved in any community where he stopped, if he realized it or not. He is somewhat humble, and you won’t hear these stories from him, but you can tell that it really wasn’t the job about making money. It was more a labor of love—a love for the harvest life and the people he has made lifelong friends with in every stop along the road, making every summer a kind of homecoming.