Random Thinking

The Worst Hard Time
by Timothy Egan

I can remember from my childhood watching the Memorial Day parades. In those parades were wizened old men wearing funny uniforms. They were the veterans of the Spanish-American War, our link to the 19th century. None of these men are left now and with their deaths we have lost memories of that time that can never be recaptured. The depression started 78 years ago and those who can recall that time are becoming fewer in number every year. Even fewer are those who lived through the worst ecological disaster in American history, the Dust Bowl.

The Great Plains had developed into a perfectly balanced ecological environment. A land with hot summers, brutal winters, little rain and constant wind, it was the perfect land for the grasses that evolved there and the Bison. The grasses with their deep roots could endure prolonged drought, their brown color hiding the strong, living roots below the surface which held the soil together. The Bison could endure the harshest weather while thriving on the grasses. The Bison were deliberately wiped out by the US government and replaced by cattle and cowboys and although the cattle could not endure the harshest weather of the plains, the ranches did not destroy the land. That was the work of the plow.

The First World War brought radical change to the Great Plains. Although farmers had carved up some land in the Plains, the boost in wheat prices caused by the war combined with unusually wet weather suddenly made even the most undesirable land profitable to farm. The Russian Revolution took Russian wheat off the market through most of the 20′s driving up wheat prices even more. A farmer on the Great Plains could easily make a fortune compared to a factory worker in the city. The farmers used their money to buy tractors and combines, saved their profits in the banks, and borrowed to buy even more land.

Everything changed in the 30′s for not only did the 30′s bring The Great Depression it also brought drought. Farming is a bet on the future. Farmers buy seed and equipment, and expend all their efforts in the hopes of harvesting a profitable crop. With the Depression, crop prices plummeted. With no flow of money there was no market to sell wheat. Farmers found that the money they could get for their wheat, when they could find a buyer, was not enough to pay the cost of growing the wheat. As their savings disappeared in failing banks and mortgages came due, the rain stopped. In the long term drought is common on the Plains but farmers had been fooled by fifteen years of wet weather. The crops died, the animals died, and the winds came.

Without the grass to hold the dried, cracked soil to the ground the dust storms started. It became the worst the man-made ecological disaster in American history. The Great Plains turned into a desert of�deadly dust storms. The movie The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of one fictional family that fled the dust storms. The book, The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan tells the story of those who stayed. Egan traveled through the Plains interviewing those who lived through the Dust Bowl era and their stories as told by Egan are unforgettable. This is the story of Ike Osteen who grew up in a dugout on the prairie and lived through hundreds of dust storms. He tells of static electricity from the storms so powerful that wire fences glowed, plants died, and the shock from shaking a man’s hand could knock you over. This is the story of Jeanne Clark whose lungs are scarred from the dust pneumonia that nearly killed her when she was just a child. This is the story of Melt White whose father was a cowboy on one of the largest ranches in the world and watched the Plains turn to dust. This is story of families who stayed in the Dust Bowl simply because they were too poor to go anywhere else and refused to believe that next year would be as bad as this year.

The Worst Hard Time is not simply a history but rather a recording of the memories of those who endured the unendurable. The diary of Don Hartwell, widely quoted in the book, tells the story: August 31, 1937 � “Practically all the corn in this country� has been destroyed by hot winds and drouth. This makes the 4th total failure in succession.” July 24, 1938 � “Today is just common hell, death, and destruction to every living thing.” August 5, 1939 � “Nearly everything is destroyed.” Each page of this book carries the suffering of those who lived through the Dust Bowl. This is a book that reads more like a novel than a history. The characters in the story truly come alive because they were real and Egan is a skilled writer who can make their stories highly readable. This is a book that you simply can’t put down. It is a masterpiece.

Don Hartwell ended his diary at Christmas 1939 with a snippet from a poem. His wife had been working in Colorado and it was the first time he had seen her in two years.

We had a crystal moment
Snatched from the hands of time,
A golden, singing moment
Made for love and rhyme.

What if it shattered in our hands
As crystal moments must?
Better than earthen hours
Changing to lifeless dust.