Nov/Dec Issue - BYU Idaho Special Collections and Family History

Woody GuthrieI’ve seen the dust so black that I couldn’t see a thing,I’ve seen the dust so black that I couldn’t see a thing,And the wind so cold, boy, it nearly cut your water off.I seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down,I’ve seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down,Buried my tractor six feet underground.Well, it turned my farm into a pile of sand,Yes, it turned my farm into a pile of sand,I had to hit that road with a bottle in my hand.I spent ten years down in that old dust bowl,I spent ten years down in that old dust bowl,When you get that dust pneumony, boy, it’s time to go.I had a gal, and she was young and sweet,I had a gal, and she was young and sweet,But a dust storm buried her sixteen hundred feet.federal attention on the problem. A monster storm on14 April 1935, “Black Sunday,” turned day into night.By 1937, 50 million acres of America’s bread-basketwas a parched semi-desert.Farms were obliterated in Arkansas, westernKansas, Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, easternColorado, and eastern New Mexico. In the hardesthit places the soil was dry to a depth of three feetand dust was everywhere, in automobile carburetors,in food, in the eyes, the ears, the nose, and themouth. Gauze masks did little and deaths from “dustpneumonia” increased. Old people and babies werethe most vulnerable. Cattle that ate dust-laden grassfilled their stomachs with “mud balls.” Winters werecold and coal was scarce.Folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote several “dust bowlballads” about this sad time and the devastated land:I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues,I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues,I just blowed in, and I’ll blow back out again.I guess you’ve heard about ev’ry kind of blues,I guess you’ve heard about ev’ry kind of blues,But when the dust gets high, you can’t even see the sky.She was a good gal, long, tall and stout,Yes, she was a good gal, long, tall and stout,I had to get a steam shovel just to dig my darlin’ out.These dusty blues are the dustiest ones I know,These dusty blues are the dustiest ones I know,Buried head over heels in the black old dust,I had to pack up and go.An’ I just blowed in, an’ I’ll soon blow out again.By 1935, thousands of “Okies” and “Arkies,” brokenpeople forced out by bankruptcy and foreclosure,had abandoned their homes to find relativeswho were better off, or to seek work in cities or aspickers on truck farms. In all, one-fourth of the populationof the Plains States packed their earthly possessionsin cars and trucks and headed out. Flat tires,overheated radiators, and broken transmissions werecommon. This great exodus moved west along threemain routes:• Route 66. This 2,448-mile-long, eight-state “MainStreet of America,” was the most direct route fromArkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the Texas panhandleto central New Mexico and Arizona, thento the Imperial Valley of California and to LosAngeles and San Diego. In the words of a 1946popular song, Route 66 wound “from Chicago toL.A., more than 2,000 miles all the way. You goNov e m b e r/De c e m b e r 2008 Ev e r t o n’s Ge n e a l o g i c a l He l p e r © 33