There’s no date on this photograph but if I’m right in estimating my father’s age as 6 or 7, then it was taken in either 1930 or 1931. In other words, two or three years into the Dirty Thirties, known elsewhere as the Great Depression.
Two years with little rain. Two years with barely any crop. Two years of rock bottom grain prices. Two years of working on relief projects. Two years of accepting relief. Two years of making do when there was precious little to make do with.
Two years of hoping after hope that “Next Year” the rains would come. That “Next Year” there would be bumper crops. That “Next Year” grain prices would go up. That “Next Year” relief would not be necessary.
Little did my grandparents know that “Next Year” would not come until 1938. That they had yet to endure the worst year of all – 1937, the year of no rain, the year of no crop, the year of the army worm invasion.
But that Christmas of 1930 or 1931, they found the will to celebrate the spirit of Christmas. They decorated a spindly spruce tree, hung a very thin Santa Claus from the curtain rod, and invited the Robinsons to join them for turkey dinner. They still lived in hope, in spite of the dire circumstances that surrounded them and everyone else.
Much as we do now. As we should do now. Like my grandparents enduring the drought, we do not know when this pandemic will end. We can only hope that it will end sooner rather than later.
Unlike my grandparents who could do nothing to alleviate the drought, we can do some things to alleviate the pandemic. Get vaccinated. Wear masks. Take reasonable precautions. Be kind.
And continue to believe in “Next Year.”
(P.S. Four chapters in “Our Bull’s Loose in Town!” Tales from the Homestead recount the dire effects of the Dirty Thirties on everyone, be they city folk or farmers.)
#DirtyThirties #GreatDepression #HannaHistory #COVID #Pandemic #Hope #OurBullsLooseInTown #MargaretGHanna
A Prairie Perspective 
Looks like climate change began in the 1930s then Margaret. Our grandparents and parents were made of far sterner stuff than todays folks, they survived a depression and two world wars. People forget or don’t want to know that the U.K. was bombed to hell and back in the 1940s, some of the old images of London, Coventry etc are unbelievable. Food shortages were commonplace, yet our ancestors DID do something …. they knuckled down, didn’t moan, and got stuck in to anything that befell them! Merry Christmas to you and yours Margaret 🎅🎅🎅
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Thanks, Dr. B. Yes, we’ve had it very easy, perhaps that’s why we expect everything to be easy. Reality can be a nasty wake-up call. Merry Christmas to you.
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There have always been cyclic water periods in the prairies going back millenium. Climate change also goes back centuries but our “advances” have definitely increased how quickly it happens. Yes life was not easy back in the 20’s and 30’s. Bernie
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