> With the distance to the field and the long June day and evening, Cecil told his wife Bessie May that he did not expect to be home before at least 10 p.m.
> When the 56-year-old British-born Saskatchewan farmer didn’t return when expected, Bessie May left their two young children and drove up to the field to see what was happening.
> What she found was a nightmare.
> Soon after he got to the field, Harris had a terrible, lonely farm incident.
> The Case tractor didn’t have modern rubber tires. It had old-fashioned steel wheels with V-shaped lugs. It was a heavy beast, capable of working hard.
> No one is quite sure what happened, but the local paper, the Rosetown Eagle, reported that Harris was between the tractor and the one-way, possibly to fix or set something, when the tractor rolled backward.
> Bob Hannay, who was 15 years old at the time and part of that night’s terrible rescue mission, thought that Harris was likely greasing the one-way and had reached up to engage the left-hand clutch to ‘jockey’ the tractor backward a little to help the procedure.
> It’s the sort of thing that farmers do. Harris had probably done it many times before.
> This time, disaster struck.
> The tractor engaged and rolled backwards. Harris was immediately rolled under, pinned by the tractor’s huge left rear wheel, sitting upright between the one-way and the tractor.
> Harris stayed alive for more than 10 hours, helpless and bleeding badly, until Bessie May found him.
> Despite the rescue efforts, Cecil George Harris died in hospital the next afternoon.
> This 75-year-old story made Saskatchewan history. While pinned, knowing he might not survive, Cecil Harris took out his pocket knife and scratched a few words into the red Case paint on the tractor fender.
> “In case I die in this mess I leave all to the wife,” he wrote, and signed it as best he could, scratching his name to seal his intent.
> That tractor fender became, on his death, Cecil George Harris’ holographic will. It was preserved, used as evidence in court, and within weeks of Harris’ death, his estate passed uncontested to his wife, as per his clear wishes.
> The will on the tractor fender went down as perhaps the strangest and most unique legal document in Saskatchewan history. It’s still taught in law school, written into legal texts, and even made Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
> The Case fender, and the knife Harris used to scratch out his will, are now held in the collection of the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/history-cecil-george-harris-will-farm-safety-1.6868417
> Shortly after lunch on June 8, 1948 — exactly 75 years ago — Cecil George Harris went out to work on his farm in the McGee district in the RM of Pleasant Valley near Rosetown, Sask.
> With the distance to the field and the long June day and evening, Cecil told his wife Bessie May that he did not expect to be home before at least 10 p.m.
> When the 56-year-old British-born Saskatchewan farmer didn’t return when expected, Bessie May left their two young children and drove up to the field to see what was happening.
> What she found was a nightmare.
> Soon after he got to the field, Harris had a terrible, lonely farm incident.
> The Case tractor didn’t have modern rubber tires. It had old-fashioned steel wheels with V-shaped lugs. It was a heavy beast, capable of working hard.
> No one is quite sure what happened, but the local paper, the Rosetown Eagle, reported that Harris was between the tractor and the one-way, possibly to fix or set something, when the tractor rolled backward.
> Bob Hannay, who was 15 years old at the time and part of that night’s terrible rescue mission, thought that Harris was likely greasing the one-way and had reached up to engage the left-hand clutch to ‘jockey’ the tractor backward a little to help the procedure.
> It’s the sort of thing that farmers do. Harris had probably done it many times before.
> This time, disaster struck.
> The tractor engaged and rolled backwards. Harris was immediately rolled under, pinned by the tractor’s huge left rear wheel, sitting upright between the one-way and the tractor.
> Harris stayed alive for more than 10 hours, helpless and bleeding badly, until Bessie May found him.
> Despite the rescue efforts, Cecil George Harris died in hospital the next afternoon.
> This 75-year-old story made Saskatchewan history. While pinned, knowing he might not survive, Cecil Harris took out his pocket knife and scratched a few words into the red Case paint on the tractor fender.
> “In case I die in this mess I leave all to the wife,” he wrote, and signed it as best he could, scratching his name to seal his intent.
> That tractor fender became, on his death, Cecil George Harris’ holographic will. It was preserved, used as evidence in court, and within weeks of Harris’ death, his estate passed uncontested to his wife, as per his clear wishes.
> The will on the tractor fender went down as perhaps the strangest and most unique legal document in Saskatchewan history. It’s still taught in law school, written into legal texts, and even made Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
> The Case fender, and the knife Harris used to scratch out his will, are now held in the collection of the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan.
Her : Does he even love me anymore?
Him :
Farm accidents are no joke