Dust Bowl

I just finished reading a book by Timothy Egan titled "The Worst Hard Time".

It is a story of people who lived through the Dust Bowl in the 1930's, in the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico.

I remember reading "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, about people leaving the Dust Bowl.

This is a factual account of people who stayed and lived through these years.

It is a story of how the plowing up of grassland to grow wheat caused the land to create dust storms.

As I read this book and read how these people lived year after year, with continual dust storms coming through for over 10 years, drought, the stripping of the land so things cannot be grown. Dust pneumonia was a new phenomenon that killed people because of all the dust they breathed in and collected in their lungs.

People went crazy.

But some survived. And they continued to live in "no man lands" as this area was referred to in the book.

And this book is their stories.

It was very well written and a very informative look at a piece of our country's history.