[Synopsis]

Originally Posted by okcpulse

I can sum it up for you. The national media grabbed on to the 'Grapes of Wrath' fever pretty quick. A handful of journalists encountered on more than one occasion Oklahoma plates crossing the California state line and said "yeah, sure enough", and then had a heyday with their columns.

But the 116,000 Oklahoma families is inaccurate from a census standpoint. In 1930, Oklahoma's population stood at 2,396,040. In 1940, Oklahoma lost less than 60,000 people throughout the 1930s.

The biggest population loss came in the 1940s when Oklahoma lost over 103,000 from 1940 to 1950. The dust bowl was long gone by then. Much of the population loss in the 1940s wasn't agrarian related, but it was people that moved to California for industrial jobs. And it wasn't a family-wide all-in-one migration. Oftentimes, the young moved to California to look for work, found work and then their parents and siblings would follow. Many DID have work in Oklahoma, they were just looking for better opportunities in California.

Population growth rebounded in the 1950s and it has been going up since then, with the brief exception of the mid-1980s.

http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/resapp...s/oklahoma.pdf

Great post!

[HeatherDawn]

My great grandpa was a share cropper and he moved the whole family to Cali like so many did then. They spent a couple years there but decided that they could be broke there or here and they'd rather be here.

My grandma's family just stayed and toughed it out. If you think about it, all you need to survive is food, water and shelter. They built shelter and grew, hunted or fished their food. They wore feedsack dresses and no shoes. They traded neighbors for what they needed.

[LadyRobyn]

Originally Posted by Synopsis

My father lived through the dustbowl. They learned to be very, very fickle and moved to Eastern Oklahoma near the Eufala area where the impact was far less severe and they were able to grow enough to live on.

Many think that the dustbowl covered the entire state, but as you can see by the image below, only far western portions of Oklahoma were severely effected.

Syn, This is the documentary that Tootsie is referring to: Black Blizzard - History.com I've watched it twice now and it IS very fascinating! The show covers much more than just the "Dust Bowl" and it affected a much broader area than that map shows.

I need to go ask my Dad, he was born in 1931 (The youngest child)... his Family stayed and survived in the Waurika area.

[linicx]

One of the good things that came out of that period of chaos was the building of the 60 miles long Grand Lake O' The Cherokees - which brought hydroelectricity to rural NE Oklahoma and the longest multiple arch dam in the world at its southern most end. When the dam gates open, the water rushes into a rocky gorge. It nothing else it is quite a sight to see.

[amyjohi]

My dad grew up on a farm in Orion (between Fairview and Chester) and my mom was born in Durant, but moved to south Texas and then Colorado. My mom was considered "city folk". When our family has discussed "hard times" in the early 40s, my mom has said "we were soooo poor, we had to eat bolonga almost every meal"....to this my dad laughs and says " We were so poor, we ate steak, we wished we could have bought bolonga!!"

I guess growing your own food had its perks!

[LadyRobyn]

Finally had the chance to sit down and ask my Dad about his memories of the Dust Bowl Era.

I asked him why he had never talked about it before and he said "Well, when you are born into a situation like that it just seems "normal", It's all I knew for my first 10 years or so"

Their farm was 12 miles outside of Waurika and they didn't own a car, trips into town were made by Horse and Wagon and he remembers his first trip into "town" when he was 5 years old. He rode on top of a hay bale and he was scared silly at the sight of so many people!

They were "Share-Croppers" as well, and they made money on the side by selling eggs and butter from their chickens and cows. They kept a vegetable garden that was watered with buckets of well-water hauled up the hill by my Dad or his siblings... he mentioned that the dust had one good result, all of the silt blown in made excellent soil for their garden.

He remembers his Mother putting potato sacks against the window sills to keep the silt from drifting into the house, but sometimes it still flowed under the sills and into a pile on the floor.

The dust changed the weather so much that it was nearly impossible to cure their meats so his Mother started canning it and keeping it in the root cellar. He said that there was a Gov't group who would come to town with large canning baths and the local women would bring in their fruits and vegetables by the bushels to can everything at once... if they had extras they would trade with each other.

He says they grew whatever was possible at the time, mostly cotton and corn... at the time wheat was very difficult to grow because of the lack of rain, but they did manage occasionally. Having sugar in the house was a treat and his Mom rationed it like gold.

They ground their own cornmeal, and his regular breakfast was cornmeal mush with a splash of milk and a tiny bit of sugar. If there were any leftovers his Mom would fry some in Butter and serve it with Supper. (I told him these days that is a *fancy* food and they call it Polenta )

Due to the depression, the price for hogs was very low so they always had pork and sausage available.

(Which his Mom would also can for the winter)

A few family pics from Jefferson county:

My Dad and one of his Sisters

Dad and his Pup going fishing (That is a can of worms on his head. )

In the field helping his Dad with the cows.

[_redbird_]

Awesome post, LR. That is my all time favorite hobby. Hearing elders tell stories from the old days.

Many Native American heirlooms and cultural artifacts were traded in those days to collectors who came from the east coast and Texas during the Depression.

I met a collector in Western Oklahoma who showed me beaded pouches that were traded for food or services in town.

My mom's grandfather had a garden and orchard that was over a mile long in the 1930's. She said as kids they would raid his garden. Even up to the early 60's we hauled water from the windmill up to the house in three large milk containers that were about 4 feet tall.

My grandparents only went to town on Saturdays. Saturday is still called "town day" by the old ones.

[Towhee]

A lot of people moved west, including to Idaho. I am a native Idahoan, and I used to say: "Arkansas and Missouri took Idaho without firing a shot".
A good many of them never returned to their native State.

[HeatherDawn]

cool pics, lr!

[TootsieWootsie]

I'm really enjoying hearing these stories and seeing the photos. Many thanks!