The Worst Hard Time (44 page)

Being Comanche: A Social History of an American Indian Community,
Morris W. Foster (Tucson: Univ. of Arizona Press, 1991).

Comanches: The Destruction of a People,
T. R. Fehrenbach (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974).

The New Encyclopedia of the American West,
Howard R. Lamar, ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1998).

Museum of the Great Plains, Lawton, Oklahoma, author visit May 15, 2003.

Comanche Nation, Comanche Tribal Home Page,
www.comanchenation.com
.

Grasslands and ranches, in part from United States Forest Service files on history of the national grasslands, La Junta, Colorado, provided to the author by the Forest Service. Also, "The Panhandle of Texas," Frederick W. Rathjen, Handbook of Texas online at
www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook
; Rathjen's
The Texas Panhandle Frontier
(Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1973); and
The Grasses of Texas,
Frank W. Gould (College Station: Texas A&M Univ. Press, 1975).

Wesley L. Hockett's quotes are from his oral history on file in the Special Collections of the Amarillo Public Library, Amarillo, Texas.

2: NO MAN'S LAND

Descriptions of Boise City from author trips to the town and from interviews, notably Norma Gene Butterbaugh Young, interviewed at her home in Boise City, Oklahoma, on September 8, 2003.

Early description of fraud from the
Cimarron News,
various editions, and records provided by the Cimarron Heritage Center, Boise City, Oklahoma, September 9, 2003.

How people lived in part from
Commerce of the Prairies,
Josiah Gregg, Max W. Moorhead, eds. (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1990).

Early Boise City descriptions and family histories from
The Tracks We Followed,
Norma Gene Butterbaugh Young, ed. (Amarillo, Texas: Southwestern Publications, 1991).

Early Panhandle homestead stories in part from author visit to Oklahoma Historical Society, Oral History Program, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, September 9, 2003.

Anecdote on preacher and postal worker from Young,
The Tracks We Followed,
previously cited.

The Hazel Lucas Shaw story and larger story of the Lucas family from author interview with Charles Shaw, Hazel's son, on September 21, 2003, and from
Sunshine and Shadows
(1984), a self-published family history written by Hazel Shaw, given to the author by Mr. Shaw in 2002, as well as personal correspondence from Mr. Shaw to author, September 22, 2003.

The Folkers family story from author interviews with Faye Folkers Gardner, on April 30, 2002, and Gordon Folkers, on May 2, 2002, as well as Mrs. Gardner's self-published family history,
So Long, Old Timer!
(1979), given to the author by Mrs. Gardner in 2002.

Descriptions of mid-1920s life in No Man's Land from author interview with Imogen Glover at her home in Guymon, Oklahoma, on April 29, 2002.

Farming statistics from the annual
Yearbook of Agriculture,
United States Department of Agriculture (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929).

Oklahoma settlement in part from
It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History of the American West,
Richard White (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1991).

Information on windmills, dugouts, and first homes in No Man's Land from author interview with Janie Harland of Texhoma, Oklahoma, on September 3, 2003, and her oral history on windmills in
Panhandle Pioneers,
compiled and edited by the Texhoma Genealogical and Historical Society, vol. 7.

The Government Bureau of Soils and John Wesley Powell's
Report on the Arid Lands
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Geological Survey, 1878) provided early description of aridity and potential for agriculture in the High Plains.

3: CREATING DALHART

The White family travails from author interviews with Melt White on November 21, 2002, at home in Dalhart, Texas.

Town-building years from the
Dalhart Texan,
various editions on file at the XIT Museum in Dalhart, Texas, and from previously cited Hunter,
Book of Years.

Dawson family details are from Dawson's previously cited book,
High Plains Yesterdays.

Kansas details are from
Kansas: A Guide to the Sunflower State,
Federal Writers Project of the WPA (New York: Viking, 1939).

Story of early southern plains town-builders from oral history, Federal Writers Project, 1936–1940, public records, Library of Congress,
www.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html.

4: HIGH PLAINS DEUTSCH

Ehrlich family history taken in part from author interview with Juanita Ehrlich Thompson of Albuquerque, New Mexico, on July 18, 2003, and from Willie Ehrlich's oral history audiotape on file at the Oklahoma Historical Society, Oral History
Program, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, recorded July 17, 1986, as well as from an unpublished family history,
Seventy-Eight First Cousins
(1990), compiled by Yvonne Fortney Jones and Georgia Ehrlich Fortney and given to the author.

Borth family story from author interview with Rosa Borth Becker, of Shattuck, Oklahoma, on September 12, 2003.

Information about early German settlement in the High Plains from author interview with Mildred Becker, curator, Wolf Creek Heritage Museum, Lipscomb, Texas, and from exhibits at the museum during author visit September 10, 2003.

Details on home life, food, and routine of Russian Germans in High Plains in part from oral history archive of tape recording with George Hofferber, Oral History Program, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The story of the Volga Germans is drawn from several sources:

Conquering the Wind: An Epic Migration from the Rhine to the Volga to the Plains of Kansas,
Amy Brungardt Toepfer and Agnes Dreiling (Lincoln, Neb.: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1966).

The Czar's Germans,
Hattie Plum Williams (Lincoln, Neb.: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1975).

Displays at the Wolf Creek Heritage Museum, Lipscomb, Texas, author visit September 7, 2003.

American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, Nebraska, author visit June 22, 2003.

"The Migration of Russian-Germans to Kansas," Norman E. Saul,
Kansas Historical Quarterly,
Spring 1974, vol. 40, no. 1.

Population gains in the High Plains from the United States Census, 1870, 1890, 1900, 1910, and 1920,
www.census.gov
.

Story of Scandinavians from
Oslo on the High Plains,
Peter L. Petersen, Norwegian American Historical Association, vol. 28,
[>]
, 1979.

5: LAST OF THE GREAT PLOWUP

Early tree-planting from
Plains Folk,
Jim Hoy and Tom Isern (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1987).

Homesteading details in part from Homestead National Monument of America, Beatrice, Nebraska, author visit April 10, 2003.

Kansas details from previously cited WPA guide,
Kansas: A Guide to the Sunflower State.

Size of the federal budget from
The Great Depression: America in the 1930s,
T. H. Watkins (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1993).

Dawson family details from previously cited Dawson book,
High Plains Yesterdays.

Folkers details from author interview with Faye Folkers Gardner, April 30, 2002, and her previously cited book,
So Long, Old Timer!

Osteen family narrative from author interview with Ike Osteen, April 25, 2002, and his previously cited book,
A Place Called Baca.

Description of Boise City at the time from the
Cimarron News,
various editions, 1930.

Early twentieth-century American life in general, in part from
America in Mid-passage, Vol. III: The Real Rise of American Civilization,
Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard (New York: MacMillan Co., 1939), and
This Fabulous Century: Sixty Years of American Life,
Volume III, 1920–1930 (New York: Time-Life Books, 1969).

6: FIRST WAVE

Bank closure from the
Dalhart Texan,
various issues, 1931, on file at the XIT Museum, Dalhart, Texas.

Depression details in general, in part from several books:

The Great Depression,
Robert S. McElvaine (New York: Times Books, 1984).

Watkins,
The Great Depression,
previously cited.

The Great Crash: 1929,
John Kenneth Galbraith (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954).

Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression,
Studs Terkel (New York: Random House, 1970).

White family troubles from author interview with Melt White, November 21, 2002.

Dalhart details from previously cited Hunter,
Book of Years.

Dalhart collapse from letters, archives, and newspapers on file at the XIT Museum, Dalhart, Texas.

Information on the Herzstein family came from a variety of sources:

Author visit to the Herzstein Museum in Clayton, New Mexico, June 4, 2003.

Author interview with Mortimer H. Herzstein on October 2, 2003.

Herzstein family archives, on file at the Zimmerman Library, Lerzstein Latin American Reading Room, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Author interview with Isabel Lord, daughter of Simon Herzstein, on February 20, 2002.

7: A DARKENING

Weather records are from federal weather bureau records, available online,
www.nws.noaa.gov/
, and from archives at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, author visit June 22, 2003.

Hazel Shaw story from author interview with her son, Charles Shaw, September 21, 2003.

Folkers details from Faye Folkers Gardner's previously cited book,
So Long, Old Timer!

Information on William Murray in part from
Alfalfa Bill Murray,
Keith L. Bryant Jr. (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1968) and William H. Murray Collection at Oklahoma University, Carl Albert Center archives, author visit, September 9, 2003.

Sheriff Hi Barrick and his story from oral history interview with Barrick, recorded January 7, 1983, on file at the Oklahoma Historical Society, Oral History Program, author visit September 6, 2003.

First dust storm details from federal government's Monthly Weather Review, January 1932,
www.history.noaa.gov
.

Approaching storms and social conditions from
The Dust Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History,
R. Douglas Hurt (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981).

White family details from author interview with Melt White, November 21, 2002.

Reaction in Boise City from
Boise City News,
various editions, 1932 and 1933.

Farming troubles from
An Empire of Dust,
Lawrence Svobida (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1940).

8: IN A DRY LAND

Dawson family descriptions of bugs from Dawson's book,
High Plains Yesterdays,
previously cited.

White family from author interview with Melt White, November 21, 2002.

Story of Blackjack's grave in part from pages of the
Dalhart Texan,
various editions, 1932, and from author interviews with Herzstein family members, February 20, 2002, and October 2, 2003.

Weather bureau reaction to early storms in part from
The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt and the Depression,
Paul Bonnifield (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1979).

Information on Oklahoma Panhandle reaction from author interview with Gerald Dixon at his home in Guymon, Oklahoma, on November 21, 2002.

Details of drought, social, and agricultural life from author interview with Dr. Ken Turner, curator, No Man's Land Historical Museum, Guymon, Oklahoma, on November 20, 2002.

Lujan family details from family history on file at Boise City Public Library, Boise City, Oklahoma, and from Young,
The Tracks We Followed,
previously cited.

County agricultural agent, William Baker, and his actions in part from
Boise City News,
various editions, 1932–1934.

Hispanics and how they lived in part from oral history of Joe Garza, on file at Oklahoma Historical Society, Oral History Program, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Hugh Bennett from United States Department of Agriculture official biography,
www.nrcs.usda.gov/about/history/bennett.html
, and
Big Hugh: The Father of Soil Conservation,
Wellington Brink (New York: MacMillan, 1951).

Farming troubles from Svobida,
An Empire of Dust,
previously cited.

9: NEW LEADER, NEW DEAL

White family details from author interview with Melt White, November 21, 2002.

Bill Murray decline from Murray archives, William H. Murray Collection at Oklahoma University.

Depression information in general from previously cited McElvaine,
Great Depression,
and
The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919–1933,
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957), as well as
Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny,
Frank Freidel (Boston: Little, Brown, 1990).

Details of Boise City from
Boise City News,
various editions, 1933–1934.

Farm income from
Yearbook of Agriculture 1934,
United States Department of Agriculture (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934).

General plains details from
Heaven's Tableland: The Dust Bowl Story,
Vance Johnson (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1947).

Bennett quotes from previously cited USDA biography and Brink,
Big Hugh.

10: BIG BLOWS

Weather details from
Boise City News,
April 1 and 14, 1933, and from No Man's Land Historical Museum, Guymon, Oklahoma, author visit November 20, 2002.

Weather history from
History of United States Weather Bureau,
Donald R. Whitnah (Champaign: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1961).