I have an elderly neighbor who grew up on a farm not too far away from the place mentioned in the article. She was part of a large family, although either a brother or sister was lost a few weeks after birth. Those were the days of house call doctors and VERY fresh cow's milk, chicken or frog. It was rough but it did toughen her to put up with today's nonsense. She's a fountain of information about how people survived back then. I'm fascinated by it all.
...it was the north Texas drought.
Did they own any of the land - or were they just surviving anywhere they could?
They did own some of the land. The year we were there was a drought year and I cannot imagine trying to feed a family on that land. My grandmother lived with us when I was growing up. She was born in 1888 in Indian Territory. Her parents moved from Sherman to west central Oklahoma to find a better life after that Texas drought although I cannot imagine how it was any better. My grandmother’s mother lost three babies to what they called milk fever. When the mother became pregnant, it was considered inappropriate to keep nursing the baby and that baby, 18-20 months old, would start to get his/her liquid other places and would, just like they still do in developing countries, die of diarrea. I have a photo of this poor woman, holding my grandmother who was at the time about 18 months old. My great grandmother had already lost two babies and the look in her face and the way she is holding my grandmother tells me that she is afraid of loving this baby too much. She did lose the one after my grandmother. And then, when she thought she had managed to raise three daughters and two sons, her first born son, at age 30, died of a septic tooth. She was never the same.
When I was going through menopause and my first born son was seriously ill, I thought often of this woman. I drew that photo and somehow found the strength to hold on.