FCS Financial: One Hundred Years July 2016 | Page 29

delivering loose hay to people in town had cows. At age sixteen, Ivor
supervised a group of farm hands who were working for ten cents an
hour. After marrying, Ivor worked as a loan officer for Farm Credit
during the 1920s and 1930s despite the fact he lacked even a high
school education. His office was in the courthouse in Grant City
where he was in the occasionally uncomfortable position of being the
only Republican there. His business, however, was not limited to that
office. “He told me the story once,” Jay said, “that he was cultivating
corn and people would want to have a loan and he’d write out the
papers on the cultivator. They were begging for money then.”
Jay’s grandparents accumulated more acreage during the Great
Depression, most likely land others had lost, and one of his aunts
bought acreage and then lost it three different times. “My dad was the
only one of his brothers or sisters that didn’t lose his property. It was
because he had a job in town,” Jay said.

The annual stockholders meeting of the Rolla Production Credit Association held
January 26, 1937. Chancie Dickson, a major figure in the Rolla PCA, stands against
the wall, fourth from left.

Getting Underway

25