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Letters from the Dust Bowl

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Alvin Turner likes to quip that "Letters from the Dustbowl" is the "best written book" that the University of Oklahoma Press will publish this year. Indeed, Caroline Henderson, the author of the columns and letters it contains, may be the most quoted authority on the social aspects of the dustbowl. Her views on Oklahoma farm life were disseminated across the country both in her columns for "Ladies' World," and her "Letters from the Dustbowl," were published in "Atlantic Monthly." In selecting material for this book, Turner told me that he had twice as many columns and letters than would fit. Alvin Turner is the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.

Caroline Henderson moved to a farm near Eva, Oklahoma, in 1907. During the next six decades, she and her husband, Will, endured the hardship of depressions and the dustbowl on their farm, with really only one bumper crop to show for their labors. Turner's overall introduction, as well as his introduction to each section, does well to place Henderson's life in context. She had great dreams for her life, both as a literate woman and as a farmer but by the end of her life, she is disillusioned and considers herself a failure.

Most of Henderson's farming experience demonstrates that dreams can save a person from an otherwise mean life. In 1917 she wrote, "The fact that we cannot see the end does not relieve us of our obligation to push forward, to gain every inch we can in humanity's forward march." As a young farm wife, she met challenges with inventiveness, and hardship with strong will. Even as crops withered and neighbors moved away, she finds beauty in flowers and friendship in animals. However, too many failed crops and dried-up dreams took their toll on Henderson's optimism. In 1952, she wrote in a letter to her daughter, "Every day seems to bring some new sorrow in these last years of fruitless effort and disappointment." With dreams dashed, Henderson loses all sense of proportion and she reads each setback as catastrophe.

"Letters from the Dust Bowl" is as heartbreaking as it is inspirational. Al Turner is right; it's a very well written book.

Deftly edited for contemporary readers by Alvin O. Turner, Letters From The Dust Bowl is a collection of letters and published materials written by Caroline Henderson (1877-1965), a woman who lived through the Oklahoma Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Her articles on the Dust Bowl first began appearing in "Atlantic Monthly" in 1931, drawing the woes of American farmers into the public eye. Her correspondence and articles, which date from 1908 to 1966, offers insight into the daily struggle to put food on the table, and her descriptions of the dust storms that covered the Plains are unforgettable. Enhanced with a biographical essay and precise annotations supplementing this extraordinary compilation, Letters From The Dust Bowl is highly recommended for students of 20th Century American History.

This is trying. The personal letters presented in the book convey a manner with which Caroline uses to overcome life stresses that come with homesteading a difficult land in a fickle environment. The Hendersons live quite alone in No Mans Land. The welfare of the Henderson family depends strictly on their ability to manifest a steady resource of food substances for nutrition and for trade. The letters from Caroline Henderson are written in a very flowery style that worked well in the early half of the 20th century. Digesting the text isn't easy if you've become adapted to the pace of life today.

However, the reader is treated to an infinite barrel of wisdom. Certainly, Caroline had to deal with much more in her life than overcoming writing styles, so it helps knowing this just to get through the book. It is easy to miss what is really going on here. Homesteading requires a harvest of food for nutrition and another harvest of food for the soul. The book talks very little about dust storms. More is spoken of the planted gladiolas, the harvest, the songs of birds, and of Christmas. Letters are torn up in frustration, and rewritten to be positive. Each response to a letter opens with words of thanks for encouragement offered.

This little book is terrific - the kind of book that changes lives. If you enjoyed Victor E. Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" you might also love this. Though not analytical and direct as Frankl, it quietly relates shared personal values. In contrast to Frankl, Henderson lives very much in freedom, but within the shackles of her environoment.

I'll admit that I didn't know a lot about the Dust Bowl before reading the historical romance novel, The Happy Immortals, that was set back then and also in 1949. Since falling in love with that book, I've become a voracious reader of anything I can get my hands on relating to the Dust Bowl, the Panhandle, etc.

Letters from the Dust Bowl is such a powerful book. Written mostly through the eyes of Caroline Henderson (who farmed with her husband near Eva, Oklahoma, the same place I understand THI's author, Robert Boyd Delano, grew up), Letters is a must read for anyone who wants to discover the true meaning of unbelievable grit and selfless determination, no matter the odds.

Plus, the interesting love story between Mr. and Mrs. Henderson, as well as their iron-clad trust in each other, is memorable.

Alvin O. Turner, a noted Oklahoma historian and educator, has done a masterful joy of not only compiling and editing Caroline Henderson's letters, but provides such remarkable "glue" as he takes the reader through the years the Hendersons spent on the prairie.

What happened during the 1930s during the "dusters" is a very important part of our country's history, and the more we understand about the bittersweet blend of hope, despair, and courage that came from the experiences of those years--all is vital to discovering what led to the 1940s and beyond.

This book is best read quickly, if not at a sitting, then over a weekend. In that way Henderson's prose gets its power, and it will take you from youthful optimism to euphoria, then to despair, and then to a sort of middle ground in which she makes peace with herself and the land. She's at her best when she describes her mental and verbal battles with intolerant churchmen: she just couldn't buy into the vengeful God of the itinerant evangelists of the time, and she was not shy about expressing her opinions. This book will make the Great Plains and Dust Bowl come alive, not as a scholarly, "objective" tome, but as a woman's journey of the heart. A very nice read.

As a musician who tours at least 200 days out of every year and spends time in the studio when I'm not on the road, I find that if I don't keep a number of interesting books with me on the road, my brain completely turns to mush.

One of the books I read recently was The Happy Immortals, a great novel set partially in the Dust Bowl years.

I'd traveled through and flown over the Oklahoma Panhandle many times, but didn't know a lot about the area or what this land had gone through.

Anyway, the interest from that novel led to a search for historical books about the Dust Bowl, including this one by Carolina Henderson, Letters from the Dust Bowl.

It's unforgettable. Gritty. Real. Sometimes overwhelming. And did I mention unforgettable?

Kudos to the editor, Alvin O. Turner, for a job well done!

BTW, two more excellent historical books on the Dust Bowl and the Oklahoma Panhandle are Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s and The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.

Caroline Henderson's letters are historic and illustrative and heart-wrenching. You get to know this truly remarkable person and how life was in this era through her writings and see the progress from youth and hope and optimism to age and despair. Losing her at the end of the book was like losing a dear grandmother. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in studying The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl. I read it as a companion to "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan.