FCS Financial: One Hundred Years July 2016 | Page 38

Chapter Three
The Glory Years

Billie Murphy, one of a long list of people who are grateful for
the help they received from Production Credit, got his start like
most young farmers. After graduating from high school he borrowed
$600 from a family friend to buy a hay baler. Then in the early 1950s,
after being turned down by a local bank, he went to Bob Pillen in
the St. Clair Production Credit Association who loaned him enough
money to buy a John Deere tractor. “I paid $1,836 for the tractor,”
Billy recalled. “My dad had to sign for me and I never will forget
when we were coming home from making the deal with Bob Pillen,
Dad said, ‘Well, I guess you’re happy; we’re gonna’ lose the farm over
you. We’ll never get that $1836 paid off.’” But he did . . . within a year.

Sometimes the annual meetings, like this one in Jefferson City in the early 1950s,
were held in the great outdoors.

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Selected References