The Ozarks During the Depression

Recession, downturn or depression - it’s what happens when the big shots on Wall Street call in their speculations.  It’s like a high stakes card game, only it’s one played with people’s lives.  Someday it’ll happen to nearly every American except the Wall Street crowd who are the card sharks.  My first recession was in 1971 caused by a national trucking strike.  The Recession of 1982 came next and the most recent occurred with the Sub Prime Crash of 2008.  Ozark boys went through the same thing in the 1930s only it was more severe, but they were young, hardworking, and resilient because they followed the harvests of the Great Plains where the work was.  Dad and his best friend, Mott Davis, are shown packed up and ready to leave in a photo taken on our place during the Depression.   Key overalls, a good suitcase, and a jug possibly filled with an adult beverage are all you needed.  The car is a Model A.

John Steinbeck and his Grapes of Wrath got all the attention.  Okies lost their farms and fled to California.  Grandma Joad died along the way and “We’re the people” Ma Joad held the family together.  When they reached the Land of Milk and Honey, they picked fruit.  Our family planted corn and picked it for farmers hurting for labor near Sioux Falls.  (One photo was stamped “Luvern, Minn.”).  After WWII many from the Ozarks went to the Great Lakes (Michigan) where the industrial might of America took off.  In 1936 Missouri had its drought but it wasn’t as serious as the “Dust Bowl” further west in Oklahoma.  Ma always said if it wasn’t for turnips, people here in West Plains would have starved to death.  More on Michigan in Journal of the Silent Majority.

Mott Davis and Henry Cherry (right) are shown in a field of snow.  Henry was partial to what I call “depression caps” popular at the time.  Others form a road crew shoveling near major power lines.  Boys from West Plains, Missouri had never seen snow like that.  Notice one farm’s substitute for a corn silo.  Woven fence wire holds thousands of ears of corn in three layers.  Old plank lumber forms the roof supported by old telephone poles connected by a ridge pole like a tent.  I also have a picture of Dad with a team of huge draft horses that pulled corn wagons. It’s another interesting story worthy of a dedicated posting some other time.  He loved animals and earned the nick name “Doc Cherry.”