Table of Contents In this book you will read about the Dust Bowl from three perspectives Each perspective is based on real things that happened to real people who lived during the Dust Bowl As you’ll see the same event can look different depending on one’s point of view Chapter 1 4 Vernon Thompson Oklahoma Farmer Chapter 2 1 4 Evelyn Brown Migrant in California Chapter 3 2 2 Florence Lee Government Journalist Look Look Again 30 Glossary 3 1 Learn More 3 1 Index 32 About the Author 32
4 1 I was born in 1923 on a farm in Cimarron County Oklahoma That’s in the Oklahoma panhandle I’ve lived in Oklahoma all my life and I’ve loved it all my life too How could anybody not love its beautiful blue skies and wide open grasslands For part of my childhood though Oklahoma was hideous Every now and then I still Vernon Thompson Oklahoma Farmer
5 have a nightmare about a black blizzard animal corpses or my daddy crying You see I grew up during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s We called this time the Dirty Thirties My family has been here since the 1880s Back then just a handful of sheep and cattle ranchers lived here My ancestors raised sheep Few folks farmed back then or at any rate they didn’t grow much The prairie sod was really tough It was hard to break up with a horse-drawn plow And the weather was awfully dry too A drought dragged on through much of the 1890s when my momma and daddy were little But over time more settlers arrived The drought ended Plows got bigger and better and farmers started using motorized tractors The ranches steadily turned into farms By the time I came along people had plowed up the prairie What had once been a vast thick thatch
