Chapter 17: True Charity

In the late spring of 1934, disaster struck again and again. The drought worsened and the sun burned down from cloudless skies. The sun seared the young sprouts of wheat and corn that had barely begun to peek out of the ground. Times had begun to grow worse and whole families starved. There was no food to put on their tables.

Many more families were driven off their farms and out of their homes when they could no longer pay even a portion of the interest on their mortgages. The Emergency Farm Mortgage Act was designed to help the small farmers survive the hard times. Somehow it seemed to help the big companies and left the rest behind.

President Roosevelt had ordered millions of pigs slaughtered to help stabilize prices. "That damned rich Yankee idiot," Pa raged when the news reached our portion of the state.

He paced the living room and continued, "People are starving and he destroyed life giving food to keep the prices stable." Those were strong words indeed to be uttered by my pa. Still, life went on.

We heard about more and more people who gave up and left. It was not a rare sight to see a worn out man and his equally worn out wife trudging down the road, pulling a home made jury rigged cart loaded with whatever they felt the could not get along without. They were the dispossessed, called Okies and Arkies, movers and worse.

Ma wept tears of sorrow at the spectacle of those homeless families, who had no resources at their command but a desperate will to survive. Some of these unfortunates were determined to walk all the way to California, the Promised Land and a few did.

The president's plans to relocate families elsewhere were stymied by political enemies and others who never understood his goals. Of course the farmers resisted what they saw as a ploy of take their farms from them. President Franklin Roosevelt uttered words that were seared for life in the heart and souls of the Dispossessed.

When farmers resisted leaving their farms for the relocation camps, he said, "Let them starve, then." He recanted those words later after his advisers told him the people were angry.

Though by the time he gave some help where it was needed, it was too late for all too many families. The others were already dead or had been driven from their farms, victims of the greedy bankers in all so many cases.

Some hardy souls walked the whole way to California, or drove if they had transportation or hitch hiked. Others rode the rails, sneaking into open boxcars, evading the dreaded railroad bulls and many died on sidings when the car they were riding in was left in the middle of nowhere. Then there were a few of those who stayed and prospered to one degree or another.

Grandpa Hansen homesteaded some of the choicest land in the whole area. He got there "sooner" than he should have by a couple of weeks, staked out his allocation of land and registered his claim the first day of the rush. He was one of the "Sooners." Grandma Hansen watched and protected the new farm while Grandpa went in to register.

Because of the way Grandpa stretched the rules he had prime land. We had at least some water the year around while others had little or none. When Ma heard about how our farm was acquired, she spoke her disapproval. Pa told her it was a dead issue. We were there and we owned the farm. Ma nodded her head and never said another word about it for many years...

We shared with our neighbors and permitted them to bring their livestock to our small lake of dammed up water. As June turned into July the water level dropped. Yet Pa would not turn his back on our neighbors. Then I added a new word to my vocabulary, serendipity.

Because I wanted a catfish pond and Pa wanted a more dependable supply of irrigation water we built a new dam. So many fortunate things came together all at once for us. Though like Pa pointed out, "All the good ideas in the world get you nothing if you don't work hard to make them real." We worked hard to put in that dam. Come to think of it, we worked hard all the time.

After a trip to town to get a harrow frame welded, Pa looked very troubled. He told Ma, "There are people without food in Woodman. Folks are coming into town from off their farms looking for any kind of work they can get.

"A man offered to work all day if I would just feed his wife and two children. Something has to be done. That dam' socialist in the White House said that as far as he was concerned, let the farmers starve."

"Did he really say something that awful?" Ma was incredulous.

"Well, that's what I heard," Pa told her. "And I did see an awful lot of hungry and idle people in town."

"Pa, Why can't we just grow a bigger garden and take our surplus into town? It's a little late in the season to start a new planting, but we ought to get something out of it. And we have extra oats and wheat. Folks should be able to do something with that and we could maybe kill a hog..." I stopped when I felt that I had begun to sound a little impractical. In fact, I was embarrassed that I had let my mouth run faster than my brain.

Pa looked at me and smiled and asked, "Son, why is it you have all the good ideas? I ran into Brother Moore in town and he said he wanted to try to do something to help those who are less fortunate than we are. He wants to serve free food to people who are going hungry. He said there is stiff resistance from some of the people in the church."

"Well, Walter, let's get together with Brother Moore and whoever would like to help those in need and do it anyway. Let those who don't like it attend church elsewhere. Or we could even start our own church. One thing for certain, I am not going to let people starve because of a selfish few." Ma had spoken her feelings and Pa nodded his total agreement.

"Son, hitch up a team and plow two more acres. I'm going on back into town. The feed store has a sale on vegetable seeds." He turned to Ma, "Hon, you ride into town with me. I get lonesome for your fine company." He gave her a hug and led her out to the car. They were gone in a cloud of dust. As they drove out of the yard, Ma already had her head on Pa's shoulder.

Even though it was midday, I hitched two Percherons, Molly and Dolly, up to the single point plow and began to turn the soil on the slope between "my" dam and the house. It was closer to three acres, but I figured a little more wouldn't hurt.

It was dark by the time I heard the car come up the hill and into the yard. Dog had brought the cows in and I was in the midst of milking when Pa got out of the truck and came out to the barn.

"You're milking a little late, aren't you Davy?" Pa asked.

He turned up the kerosene lantern I had brought out to the barn to see by and saw I had two cows left to milk. He grabbed a bucket and squatted down by one cow and started to milk her.

"Well, Pa, I was trying to get as much of that new garden plowed as I could. I'm sorry I made the cows wait." I gave him my explanation and shut up. I learned that pa had no use for what he called, "excuses, alibis and other lies." If you did something wrong, just own up to it. Face up and get it over with.

"Son, your heart was in the right place, but it does pain the cows when they need to be milked. You know that." His tone was gentle but full of reproof.

"I know, Pa, and I am sorry." There was nothing else I could say. I finished the old Guernsey I was milking and started on the last one, a new Swiss that had recently had her first calf. She was fidgety and I had to be patient with her.

He helped me carry the milk to the milk house. I started to turn the separator crank. Dog grabbed the old tin bowl up in his teeth and brought it over to me for his first serving. Pa watched in amazement as I filled the bowl and Dog slurped it all down. He brought it back for seconds. And I poured the bowl full a second time. Then he inhaled that bowl of milk, licked it clean, belched and went over to sit by the door.

"That dog even washes his own dishes. He is an amazing animal. Now just so he doesn't learn how to use a knife and fork. Then I'll be real worried that he's haunted." He shook his head in mock concern.

The next morning, after the milking was done, I hitched up one team of horses to the plow and Pa hitched up the other pair to the discs. I finished plowing and Pa broke up the big clods with the discs. I changed over to the harrow and finished breaking the soil up and made it manageable for planting. Pa approved of the extra land I had plowed. It always felt great when Pa complimented me on something. He was able to show appreciation in an honest way that made it very important to me.

Ma took a bunch of potatoes that had just started to sprout and pulled them out to us in my old red American Flyer wagon. After I got too old to play with it, Ma took it over to be her "tote cart," as she called it. She shoved her plugger into the ground and dropped in a cut up piece of potato. She always tried to have three "eyes" in every piece. She figured one of the three eyes would sprout.

The new garden was planted in neat and orderly rows. We put in beets carrots and a lot of beans, as well as the potatoes. Beans and potatoes were great staples to fight off hunger. It took us two and a half days of hard work to get everything planted.

We were in a hurry because it was the middle of April, and that was the month everything was supposed to be in and growing. Of course we had our "regular garden" already planted. It would start to yield in June and we could try to help with what we could share out of it.