Teal and I have different takes on the depression due to the fact that her family was urban poor instead of rural poor. My family had to grow everything we ate and everything our animals ate. The animals were our lifeline for milk, plowing, and not for food because we had to sell them for cash and eat mostly beans, greens and fried potatoes and whatever vegetables we had from the garden and whatever my mother was able to preserve. I was often hungry because I did not like beans or poke sallat.

The one difference in my family and in the books by Erskine Caldwell and John Steinback was that my mother and dad were intelligent and educated themselves by being avid readers. That did not save us. Nothing grew during the dust bowl days. You could pray until you were blue and there was never a drop of rain. Gardens withered. The final blow came when we lost our gentle plow horse, Stormy. He rolled in the river and punctured his gut on a root that was sticking up. Believe me, I was about six and I grieved because he was a good and patient horse and let me ride on his back. I loved him a lot.

We were renters. My parents got married with seven dollars in their pocket and they still had to buy groceries. They couldn't scrounge up the money for a down payment. Though



I was young, I think my father's despair at being unable to provide well for his family was hard for me to take. He and my mother auctioned off all their worldly goods and we set out for California. They ran out of money in Arizona. Of course the only job that could be found was picking cotton and they both had to work. It is back
breaking horrible work. My sister was two and I was seven. I had skipped second grade and was in the third. we lived in a migrant shack with no bathroom and no running water. I had to stay with my sister so my mother could work. Thankfully, I could make her peanut butter and graham cracker sandwiches for lunch and tend to her other needs.

I felt shamed at not being allowed to go to school and shamed for being so poor. There was never a treat or a toy or any new clothes for years. We were able to go home with the money my Mom and Dad made and it was to my grandparents home. My aunt lived in a tent in the yard with her husband and two children and my other aunt, her baby, my parents, my sister and I lived in their one bed room house. Rabbits were a treat but they were thin on the ground and were called Hoover chicken. Things gradually got a little better every year and my Dad rented another farm.

What absolutely saved us was FDR. He had a farm program for good farmers that could meet certain standards called the farm tenant act that loaned the money for a farm and a small new home at a very low interest rate. My Dad and grandad built the chicken house first and we lived in it while the house was built. It was large and seemed deluxe after some of two room shacks we had inhabited.

My parents were very frugal. Of course this means that my sister and I are not frugal. We buy a lot of clothes because we never had them growing up. we take vacations and we have indulged our children. My sister says she has blacked out that part of her past. I cannot and I am not bitter. My parents did very well and
I admire their determination and can do spirit. They left us a much larger estate than we will be able to leave our children.
I am reminded of what my Dad said a thrifty German farmer told him, "We sell what you eat and what you throw away we eat." I
pity anyone who has to live that way. what saved us and brought us joy was that we had a good sense of humor and could laugh at our trials and tribulations. We also had a close southern family
and were generous and affectionate with each other. We got together for inexpensive picnics, ice cream freezings and water melon fests. None of us were afraid to work hard and winters were spent knitting and quilting. It has made my sister and I the strong women that we are today but truthfully, I would have enjoyed an easier childhood.