Below is a list of the 7 carefully chosen descriptive quotes of the most devastating environmental disaster in U.S. History1 by Caroline Henderson. Caroline and her husband Will lived in the heart of the dust bowl in Oklahoma’s Panhandle.2 Although farming was her trade, her most important work is found in the documenting of what life was like on the Southern Plains of Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. While others left for California to leave the hardships of their tortured land, Caroline and Will stayed to brave the sting of the pelting dust for the next eight years on a land they had worked so hard to build for nearly 30 years prior3.
Quotes by Caroline Henderson from Letter from the Dust Bowl4
- “There are days when for hours at a time we cannot see the windmill fifty feet from the kitchen door. There are days when for briefer periods one cannot distinguish the windows from the solid wall because of the solid blackness of the raging storm.”4a
- “‘Dust to eat,’ and dust to breathe and dust to drink. Dust in the beds and in the flour bin, on dishes and walls and windows, in hair and eyes and ears and teeth and throats, to say nothing of the heaped up accumulation on floors and window sills after one of the bad days.”4b
- “It is an almost hopeless task, for there is rarely a day when at some time the dust clouds do not roll over. ‘Visibility’ approaches zero and everything is covered again with a silt-like deposit which may vary in depth from a film to actual ripples on the kitchen floor.”4c
- “A fairly promising piece of barley has been destroyed for us by the merciless drift from the same field whose sands have practically buried the little mulberry hedge which has long sheltered our buildings from the northwest winds”4d
- “Everything now depends on whether a definite change of moisture conditions occurs in time for people to sow wheat for 1936. The ‘suitcase farmers’ – that is insurance agents, preachers, real estate men, and so forth, from cities near or far – have bet thousands of dollars upon rain, in other words, have hired the preparation of large areas of land all around us which no longer represent the idea of homes at all, but just parts of a potential factory for the low-cost production of wheat – if it rains.”4e
- “Yet as we grey, lonely old people sit here by the fire tonight, planning for the years work, my thoughts seem bound to fall into that pattern. It may be that the dust will choke us down; It may be we shall wake some happy morn and look again on fields of waving grain.”4f
- “Nothing that you see or hear or read will be likely to exaggerate the physical discomfort or material loss due to these storms. Less emphasis is usually given to the mental effect, the confusion of mind resulting from the overthrow of all plans for improvement or normal farm work, and the difficulty of making other plans, even in a tentative way.”4f
Sarah Popejoy, Vigilant Poster Girl
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References:
- PBS Learning Media
- PBS Ken Burns Dustbowl Biographies, Caroline Henderson
- Atlantic Monthly “Letters From the Dust Bowl”
- Letters from The Dust Bowl by Caroline Henderson, edited by Alvin O. Turner; a. pg 140 ,b. pg 141, c.pg 147, d. 149, e. 151, f. 154
Influenced by songwriters like Lucinda Williams, Roseanne Cash, Bruce Springsteen, and Dar Williams, Sarah Popejoy’s songs blend storytelling with an Americana leaning groove. After living in Nashville for 10 years, Sarah moved back home to Tulsa, what Rolling Stone calls the next Austin, where she is producing her 3rd studio album called “The Oklahoma Storyteller”. Most of the album has been recorded at the newly renovated, world-class studio, The Church Studio, in Tulsa, Oklahoma which was previously owned by Leon Russell. All songs on the new album are written by Mrs. Popejoy, a previous award winner of the American Songwriter Magazine Lyric Contest and The Billboard Song Contest.
The intersections of I-40, The King of Trails (Highway 75), and the largest stretch of Route 66, Oklahoma figuratively and literally is the crossroads of the American Story. It was the end of the trail for many indigenous people during America's dark history of forced removal, birthplace of one of the biggest heroes of America's pastime, home to the struggles of those who lived and breathed the Dust Bowl, home of some of the biggest trendsetting influencers in modern American music, and the site of the worst domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history. This is why the first album in The Oklahoma Storyteller series, is called, "The Oklahoma Storyteller: Crossroads of the American Story", set to be released Summer of 2024.