This site is a reference to Jesse G. Lindeman and the Lindeman – John Deere BO Crawler along with other equipment that was designed and built by Jesse and his three brothers Harry, Ross & Joe at Lindeman Power Equip. Co., Northwest Equip. Co. & Lindex Co. in Yakima, Washington between 1921 and 1998.

If you can add anything to this site or if I have stated something incorrectly please E-mail me at li********@ya***.com” href=”mailto:li********@ya***.com” data-original-string=”tULAFal1mmuPYiiNj/9lUQ==596HbpH8Ox2cO69TqHXcBev/nHEd52hLirhNTPHPZWSOOk=” title=”This contact has been encoded by Anti-Spam by CleanTalk. Click to decode. To finish the decoding make sure that JavaScript is enabled in your browser.”>li********@ya***.com with any comments or suggestions.
Thank you
Ted E. Adams
(P.S., For those interested, Click Here  for a short autobiography of Ted Adams.

Jesse G. Lindeman was born on October 12, 1899 in Cass County, Iowa he was the oldest of 6 children (Jesse: 1899 -1992) (Harry: 1900 -1930) (Ross: 1902 – 1947) (Leona: 1905 – 1983) (Joseph: 1912 – 1982) and (Alice: 1915 – 2000).

Jesse was raised on a farm in Cass County, Iowa. He had an 8th grade education and on the farm he was always spared the farm work so he could “futz” (as he put it) with the machinery parts, he remembers best from his childhood a Christmas toy from his Grandma of a bell on wheels, which when drawn across the floor would ring the bell. Which led to his life long love and career in the field of orchard machinery.

In May of 1918 at the age of 18, he joined the United States Army Air Corps. He was assigned to Post Field, Oklahoma (Henry Post Army Airfield (IATA: FSI, ICAO: KFSI, FAA LID: FSI) is a military use airport located at Fort Sill in Comanche County, Oklahoma, United States. This military airport is owned by United States Army.^[1] It is the oldest continually operating airfield in the U.S. Army inventory. Established in 1917, it is named in honor of pioneer aviator Henry Post (1885–1914).). His duty was a forward flight observer spotting artillery guns from an airplane. Jesse was color blind to certain colors and could see through the camouflage netting. As per one of his granddaughters Bev Minor when he was not being a spotter they assigned him to the cook tent. She said he got a big kick out of going into the service and becoming a cook. Now you must remember this is just months before the war was over. Jesse’s stay in the armed forces was short. The war ended, and he was released from duty in July of 1919.

After returning home, he could not envision himself as a “farmer”, so he ventured out west to Ellensburg, Washington where his Uncle, Gus Lindeman, had an auto dealership and was also the local sheriff. Jesse moved to Yakima and was hired as a farm implement salesman at Rovig Lumber Company. He started to work on the first working day in January of 1920.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was looking for a Lindeman for myself to have around the plant so that Jesse would have something to remind him about the old days. Paul had heard about one in the North West corner of the state, so he and I went up to talk to the owner. He wouldn’t come down on the price as he had indicated, Paul said it wasn’t worth that much, so we went home empty handed. We had talked on the way back about me buying one he had bought. Nothing came of it until after Jesse had passed away, my then he had realized that the first one he had bought wasn’t correct, so he sold it to me. Once I got it, I changed the undercarriage to the correct one. I took it to a few shows and eventually bought another one from Jesse’s nephew Bob Lindeman, along with a lot of spare parts. With the parts there were all the parts to convert this crawler into a wide gauge Lindeman. I did have to make new drive axles though, because the old ones were too far gone. Once I had it, the old crawler had to go, so I sold it to Bob Smythe with all the old undercharge that was on it when owned by Paul.  He changed it back to the way it was in the photo that Jesse had his picture taken. Looking back I wish I had the money to keep it. As they say hind site is 20-20. When Bob sold his collection of over 70 Lindemans it was sold to a collector in North Carolina.

In 1992 when Delmer Bice was at the Two-Cyl Expo he met Harold Schultz, as they were talking Del mentioned that the national show was being held in Yakima, Jesse was going to be the Grand Marshal and it would be great if Jesse was pulled in the Starlight Parade by one of his crawlers and being that Harold’s crawler had rubber track pads he could drive it on the streets.  Harold and his wife Virgina drove pulling there Lindeman from Ollie, IA to meet and pull Jesse in the in the parade.

 

Jesse also was interviewed by Randy Leffingwell for a chapter in “A History of the John Deere Tractor”, a book he was writing. Jesse passed away shortly after, one month prior to his 93rd birthday.