52 Ancestors In 52 Weeks: Harvest

Monday, 15 April 1935

This morning, our friend and neighbor Walter Simpson brought us the most awful news. Just what everyone feared! We are trying to grasp what this can mean for us. This horrible happening took place a few hundred miles from us, but the heartbreak and devastation have shrouded us in terror and uncertainty. Will we be saved from Mother Nature’s wrath for not caring for her soil after the harvest?

Walter told us that yesterday is being called Black Sunday. The sky brought a storm of soil so thick through the air that those outside could barely breath or see to find their ways home. More farms will be abandoned as their occupants pack up and move westward…they cannot feed their families and livestock. It is so incomprehensible to me how this all happened right here in the land we call “the bread basket of America”. Granted we have not made much profit from this farm we rent from Andrew’s uncle’s people in Mississippi.

My husband Andrew and I need to discuss if we will hold steadfast to our idea of farming and living on these Kansas plains. After all, our parents and grandparents came to this land in the 1870’s with nothing but dreams. With two young daughters, we have to plan how we will care for all four of us. Our president FDR has only been in office for a short amount of time…will he be able to save us from this next disaster of the Depression? The conservationists state that there is an answer to caring for the land, but it will take time.

The state motto of “Ad astra per aspera…to the stars through difficulties” reminds us that we are gifted with perseverance and resiliency. May Almighty God grant us those graces.

~Isabella Mary Boultinghouse Storer

Tilden Township, Osborne County, Kansas

Note: Isabella is my maternal grandmother. This writing is her imagined reaction to the news of Black Sunday.