Fordson F made in 1924
The emigrants from today’s eastern Slovakia had their own peculiarities. Most of them did not want to go to America permanently, their main desire was to earn money as quickly as possible, return to their native village and buy “žem” (land) and build a house.
Andrej Tomčík’s immigration card
The soil was the greatest value and the greatest security. When they returned, the more successful of them bought up the land in the villages that they had farmed and run businesses on during the inter-war period, unaware that they would lose their land when the new regime came in after 1948.
Cheque for sending money to Slovakia 1930
Many of them brought modern farming equipment from America to the “country”. Within the Slovak Heritage Garden we have built a barn – a “pľeveň” (barn) – in which we present the technology imported from America.
Cheque for sending money to Slovakia 1933
Our pride and joy is the Fordson F tractor, built in 1924 in Detroit, Michigan. Because of its turbulent history, we’ve dubbed it the tractor of 20th century history. Its odyssey begins in July 1926, when Andrej Tomčík from Trnava nad Laborec emigrated to America.
Andrej Tomčik
He worked in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, got married to Anna Romanova, together they had son Juraj and daughter Anna. Anna married František Pastornický, the grandfather of Jozef Pastornický, from whom we purchased the tractor for the Museum.
Family of Andrej Tomčík
Andrej Tomčík bought the tractor sometime in the early 1930s and sent it to his daughter’s family in Slovakia in 1935. Two years later he tragically died in a car accident.
Michal and Anna Roman, parents of Anna Tomčiková
František Pastornický together with his wife Anna – daughter of Andrej Tomčík, started a tractor business. František Pastornický was born in 1912 in Pavlovce nad Uhom, came from a peasant family and had 14 siblings.
Family of František Pastornický
He ploughed and threshed grain with a tractor as self-employed tradesman. In the turbulent period after 1948 and the liquidation of small self-eployments, he had to close his in 1950.
The self-employment certificate of František Pastornický 1942
The agricultural machinery – including an American Fordson F tractor – was to be handed over to the so-called machine-tractor station.
Permission to beat with a threshing machine for František Pastornický
František managed to save the tractor – he buried it! So the tractor survived the difficult period of collectivisation and we managed to buy it for the Museum!
Fordson steering wheel
We could not have acquired this wonderful piece of history without the agricultural technology enthusiast Jan Tomáš from Kačanov. Not only did he buy the tractor, he also managed to get it running! Come and see our Fordson to the Tegeňa barn!
The Fordson party