June 12, 2025

Spanning generations: Farmers join to harvest for late friend

By Tom Doran

With the final acre of corn harvested, friends of the late Pat Watson who helped gathered for a photo. After the photo was snapped a “parade” of semi-trucks delivered the last bushels to a nearby elevator. Watson, 61, died July 31 and over two dozen friends gathered to harvest and ship his 1,400 acres of soybeans in November and corn in December. (Provided photo)

ODELL, Ill. — With multiple combines harvesting a field, tractors pulling grain carts and semi-trucks moving corn, Ray Watson Jr. reflected on friendships and how they span generations.

Ray’s brother, Patrick, 61, an Odell area farmer, died unexpectedly July 31, and over two dozen showed up to harvest the 1,400 acres of soybeans and corn Pat planted last spring.

Eight combines, along with grain carts and semis and 28 volunteers harvested Pat’s soybeans in November, and the crews returned with seven combines when it was finally fit the second week of December to harvest the corn.

“It’s just been overwhelming. It’s unbelievable the sense of community. It’s a great remembrance of Pat,” Ray said.

Ray, of Springfield, noted many of those helping with harvest are the sons or grandsons of his dad’s friends. Those strong ties continue to this day.

“You can’t imagine what it means to us,” Ray said.

Gary Fosen of Odell and Pat were friends since their grade school days and he was among those who brought his combine to help out.

Pat and Gary both returned to their family farms after graduating from college and shared their wins and losses with one another.

“I lost my dad when I was 30, and it wasn’t too much later that Pat lost his. So, we bounced a lot of ideas off of each other. We used to confide in each other. He’d run stuff by me, and I’d run stuff by him,” Fosen said.

Community Effort

“Everybody was asking for two or three weeks when are we going to get together to do Pat’s crops. Always when there’s a tragedy like that the neighbors all pull together. There was a lot of support there,” Fosen noted.

“It was a community effort. Everybody liked Pat.”

Some of those helping still had their own crops to finish harvesting.

“We worked on Pat’s corn three days and by the time we got down to the last day (Dec. 13) most guys had finished everything up and they were over there just trying to get Pat’s finished. There were some guys that left some of their own crops go to go over and finish up to help Pat,” Fosen said.

“There was a lot of other people who also wanted to help but the day just didn’t work out.

“That last day of harvest was a beautiful day. Maybe one guy had a breakdown the whole time. So, Pat was smiling down on us.”

With such an outpouring of support Fosen added, “It just goes to show how many people love Pat and supported Pat. He was an amazing man and we all miss him.”

“I’m so grateful to everyone for helping out,” Watson said.