Robert C. Erickson - Champion Plowman

My Uncle Bob was a champion plowman, back when that kind of thing was a big deal here in the Midwest.  I don’t want his story to be forgotten.  How many young men of his generation ended up meeting four presidents, and competing in Europe (twice!) solely because of a remarkable ability to plow a straight furrow?

Robert Charles Erickson (1924-2005) was my mother’s younger brother.  He grew up in a farm family in northern Illinois, and learned young how to drive a tractor and work a plow.  By the time he was a teen, he was competing in—and winning—level land plowing matches at the local level and beyond. 

He first competed nationally in 1947 at age 23, where he lost by only .05 point.  But made a number of appearances at the nationals, and in 1954 at Olney, Illinois, he achieved his dream of being national champion.  So in 1955 he competed in the world championships in Uppsala, Sweden, coming in 8^th out of 36.  1960 saw him winning the nationals again, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, qualifying him to compete the next summer in Grignon, France, where he placed 12^th out of 48. 

The photograph below shows him in 1956 with President Eisenhower.  I also have pictures of him with Truman and Nixon.  He told me once that he ate lunch with President Kennedy around the time he competed in France, but there was no photographer there.

Uncle Bob retired from national-level competition after France, due to a rule that forbade the same person from representing the U.S.A. more than twice, so my mother told me...  She said the rule later changed, but he chose not to return to competition.  He went back to Minooka, Illinois and farmed there the rest of his life with his father, my Grandpa Erickson, who had taught him everything he knew about plowing.

Sadly, Uncle Bob died a lonely man.  He and his wife Shirley had no children, and his wife died many years before he did.  Quarrels about money and inheritances had broken his ties with most of his family by the time he died.  But he always loved his farm and his tractors and his stories.

I drove out to Minooka, Illinois one day a few summers ago and looked up his tombstone.  I was pleased to see that it was well cared for by his best friend Tom, and that it was a fitting tribute to a Champion Plowman.

Sture Wallin, Soldier and Baseball Player

My grandfather, Sture Nels Wallin (1892-1979) was a Nebraska farm boy, son of Swedish immigrants.  But somewhere along the line he developed a love—and a talent—for baseball.  He was a left-handed pitcher and third baseman who played baseball while in the U.S. Army in Europe at the end of WWI—I wish I could find out more about that team!—and later, after he returned home, in the county leagues of rural Nebraska. 

This photo shows Grandpa and his firstborn son (my father) around 1925.  My father, Robert Milo Wallin, wrote out some memories of Sture and his baseball career:

“Dad always played baseball, usually third base, and always he would hit cleanup (fourth).  There were county leagues in those days, and games were every Sunday afternoon...  He had played in the army as well, having been chosen to one of two teams out of the whole American army in France to travel to Italy and other countries for exhibition games after the war was over (1918-1919).  He was in fast company there, and I can remember him mentioning friends who were then in the Major Leagues in the 1920s.  He played baseball and fast pitch softball until 1936 that I can remember, which would have made him 44 years old.”

I can recall Dad saying that after Grandpa Sture came home from the war, he had the opportunity to try out for two professional baseball teams—one of them the St. Louis Cardinals, and I don’t remember the other one.  But by then Grandpa had been courting Grandma for seven years, and it was time for him to choose between her and baseball—and so he married his sweetheart and settled down on a Nebraska farm. 

But he never gave up baseball...  My Aunt Janet, the only one of his children still living, told me recently that she remembers going to her father’s baseball games as a small child in the 1930s, at the baseball field in Chapman, Nebraska, which was their home field.  She said she paid little attention to the games, though, preferring to wander around the stands and allow the spectators to make a fuss over her and buy her treats.

One of Grandpa’s uniforms survived all these years, and today it is a treasured possession of one of his grandsons, my cousin Brian.