Rosenort, MB
Walter Hoeppner of Rosenort says he is sick and tired of defending himself against accusations that he placed the “woman with tractor” ad in the Manitoba Co-operator back in August of 1956.
The ad purportedly read as follows:
‘Farmer looking for woman with tractor, please send picture of tractor.’
“People just jumped to the wrong conclusion,” said Hoeppner.
“Back in 1957 I was looking to get married,” he said, “and I was also in the market for a tractor. People knew that, it was no secret.”
Hoeppner says he met Olga Barkman at a Jugendverein in early September of 1957. As luck would have it, Olga had been left a John Deere tractor and a three-bottom plough by her uncle Cornelius who died in 1955.
Walter and Olga have now been married for almost 60 years and both are adamant that it was not the ‘woman with tractor’ ad that brought them together.
“Besides that,” said Hoeppner, “look at Derk Warkentin from Blumenhof, in 1957 he married Mary Penner who was a widow and she came with a whole line of farm machinery, not just a tractor. Has anyone ever asked Derk and Mary how they met?!”
It is unfortunate that no one has come up with a copy of the original issue of the Co-Operator as no doubt it would have listed a box number.
Spottschreft 