Barefoot Memories of a Hillbilly - Dust Bowl Symptoms

When Pap was about 20 years old, the Midwestern states had been plowed into such a state that there was very little actual grasslands left. With updated farm implements, including tractors and plows, farmers and ranchers were turning the ground over to increase their crop production and grazing land. Unfortunately, this also coincided with a drought of unpredictable size and duration. Grasshoppers and devouring insects piled onto all vegetative growth, and as a result, what crops were left then failed. Much of the central states became a barren waste. As the spring winds followed a useless winter swept the nations midsection, the central section became a huge dust bowl. Newspaper editorials of that time clearly state how the Midwestern states were affected, but there's little documentation on how the states east of the Mississippi River were affected.

On asking Mom and Dad about the news of the time (since they both lived the rugged times) and how they kept up with the midwest crisis, I was quite surprised to hear both of them say the dust was carried into this area. Pap went on to explain how the western sky was painted a dark color that hid the sun in the evenings, causing shortened daylight hours. On some days, there was just enough dust hanging in the air that men out working in the fields would sometimes dampen their handkerchiefs and hang them on their faces to cover their mouths and noses. Pap said a film of dust covered the crops and equipment, more nuisance than hindrance, but the dust served to continually remind all of a nation walking a fine line.

Mom spoke of a lot of houses, roughly built, that had cracks between the unfinished sawed boards framing the walls, allowing dust to blow in the cracks. Housewives stuffed old rags into these cracks and around window seals and doors to keep dust out of the house. Clothes hung outside to dry had to be gathered in as soon as possible to limit their exposure to dust as well as keep hoards of grasshoppers from chewing on the fabric. Insects that found little to eat in those midwestern states moved eastward as well, driven by their appetites and carried by the winds. Some women cut up old rags and sheets, dipped them in a thinned flour paste, and glued them to the board walls as a cloth wallpaper to keep the dust out. Gardens were a fighting match between insects and farmersvtending the crops. It even reduced the production of milk from the milk cows, as they too felt the stress of foraging in dust-laden pastures. Then the rains set in, rains that turned everything into mud. So the weather went back and forth between being extra dusty and extremely muddy.

In a country still rebounding from the Great Depression, and in the midst of what would become the Great 1930s Kentucky Flood, the Dust Bowl was just one more dilemma the Appalachian farmer was pressed to deal with.  One thing Mom and Pap both stated was that this was a time when the communities united, and there was a great resurgence of churches and religion. In the midst of famine, drought, floods, financial cripplin,g and impending war, the community never worked harder to support their own and care for their neighbor while relying on the faith and hope brought to them through their local churches and revivals.

I wear shoes now, but sometimes I have barefoot memories.