Earl Milton Ebbers

Earl Milton Ebbers was born December 17, 1919 to John and Delia Pietinpol Ebbers on a farm near Cortland, Nebraska. He died on December 26, 2006 at the Heritage Care Center in Fairbury at the age of 87. He was baptized at the country church south of Princeton. Earl attended school at Sunny Side near Cortland and graduated from the 8th grade in 1935. He enjoyed living on the farm where he started doing field work at age 8 with the horses he loved. While in school, he found out how much he loved baseball. In his early years he had one of the first corn shellers and did custom shelling. Earl was always interested in improving farming methods. He was one of the first farmers to have a corn picker. Earl took two 2 row corn listers and made a four row lister out of them. Some of his neighbors thought he was crazy as they said it was “too big to farm with”. He was always the first to try new things.
In 1950, he bought his first farm west of Firth and drilled an irrigation well on it being the first such well in the area. In 1955, he married his wife Bernice and to this marriage a son Dan and a daughter Barb were born. He later adopted Mary Pat. Earl was always bothered with health problems and had to sell the farm in 1960 and move to Lincoln.
While in Lincoln, he umpired little league ball games, attended cattle sales in Fairbury and he enjoyed farm auctions. In 1967, he was feeling better and decided to go back to farming. The family moved to Fairbury where he and his wife farmed until a tractor came over backwards injuring him so bad he had to give up farming. He remained on the farm and took up fixing old I.H. tractors. Whenever he found an old F20 or F30 sitting in the junk pile, he would buy it and bring it back to life. If you couldn’t find the needed repairs, he would make them himself. He had the old tractors in good working order, when his health gave out and he had to give up his love for his old tractors. Earl had been in bad health the last 7 years until he couldn’t get around any more and had to go to the Heritage Care Center.
Survivors include his wife Bernice of Fairbury, daughter Mary Pat and husband Roger Ebbers of Lincoln, Nebraska, daughter Barb and husband Kevin Sasse of Diller, Nebraska, son Dan and wife Lauree Ebbers of Hallam, Nebraska, brother Warren and wife Lila Ebbers of Adams, Nebraska, sister Ruth Bouma of Firth, Nebraska, 7 grandchildren; Serena Aasen, Devin Ebbers, Myndee Ebbers, Karter Sasse, Garrett Ebbers, Riley Sasse and Elliot Sasse, 3 great-grandchildren; Veronica Westbrook, Hannah Westbrook and Kinsley Aasen.
Services will be on Friday, December 29, 2006 at 11:00 A.M. at the United Methodist Church in Fairbury. Burial at the Prairie Home Cemetery at Diller. Memorials are to the family’s choice.