At least twice a week, Donald Ward drives an old car the quarter-mile from his house into his pasture. There, sitting in the open, is a much older ride: a rusted, 72-year-old tractor held together by rolls of duct tape and heaps of wire.
Ward, 83, once used the tractor to plow, but those days are long passed. Nevertheless, he still cranks the engine and drives it around to survey his property on Waverly Ferry Road near Columbus.
“People say things all the time about that old tractor and my age and all,” Ward said. “But, it is something I enjoy. Everyone says I am happiest on that tractor. Well guess what? It is worn out and I am worn out. We understand each other.”
His affinity for his old tractor is rivaled only by his care for his impressively large garden. Many days, Ward spends sunrise to sunset through spring and summer tending rows of fruits and vegetables despite the sometimes oppressive Mississippi heat.
“My wife, she fusses at me for getting out there all day in the heat,” Ward said. “(She) says I need to stay inside and out of the heat but this is what I do, this is where I like to be,” Ward said.
Ward was thrown into a lifestyle of farming as soon as he could walk, learning from his father as he grew up. That lent itself to a passion for living off the land.
Ward’s father hauled ice when Ward was a child. Sometimes he would even get to ride in the back of his truck during deliveries. By 1952 the refrigerator became so popular it put Ward’s father out of business, so he found a second career as an aircraft mechanic at the Columbus Air Force Base.
While his dad was at work at the base, Ward would plow the fields and do farm work at home.
“Daddy was a mechanic and I was just a kid,” Ward said. “He was sitting down one morning and he told my momma that he was not farming any more because we were not making anything out of it. Well they got a load from me hollering and hooting.”
As an adult, Ward made his own career, putting in 21 years at Columbus Fire and Rescue. After he retired, he threw himself back into growing, turning a quaint home garden into the full-scale annual operation it is today. He tends four rows each of corn and peas, two rows each okra, tomatoes, squash and cucumbers. He grows rattlesnake beans and blueberries, and his figs grow as big as baseballs.
Mike Smith has been a friend of Ward’s for the last few decades. He speaks volumes to Ward’s determined and hilarious nature.
“I remember one time he was so determined to get to church for a meeting that he came on his little motorcycle,” Smith said. “He had just had surgery and was told not to drive. He got on his moped and scootered all the way to church and across all the highways.”
Through their friendship, Smith and his wife Ellie have become loyal “customers” of Ward’s garden.
“Mike Smith, he loves those peas and the people over at church — about three couples — will come out here and pick some peas to eat. If they mess up, they ask me to pick them for them and I say no. I will grow the peas but I ain’t picking them,” Ward said.
His emotional attachment to his tractor, which he’s had for 65 years, extends longer than even his marriage to his wife Martha.
Last year, the tractor broke down, and Ward could not find anyone willing to come fix it. Determined it was not time to part with it, he solicited the help of his youngest son John and patched the old tractor up himself.
A couple rolls of duct tape, some wire and a few new parts later, Ward was feeling like himself again as the gurgling sound of the engine sang.
“He has so much love for that tractor,” Smith said. “He grew up with it. It was his dad’s. The garden and this tractor is something. We all lead purposeful lives and this is one of his purposes.”
When he is not in the garden or on the tractor, Ward helps his wife around the house, making jams and jellies. He also makes time to watch his favorite TV show.
“I only have one program where when it comes on I will quit what I am doing and watch it,” Ward said. “On Monday afternoon at 4 o’clock ‘Trains and Locomotives’ comes on. I enjoy looking at the old towns and the old scenery. I like to see the old clothes and the old mountainsides.”
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