The Great Depression

      It seemed like it would never end; the dust was endless and just when we thought it was gone it’d come again.   Today was just like all the others, no rain had fell, no crop planted had grew, and the dust was still flying.  Even though nothing had changed we all told ourselves that tomorrow would be better.  We kept our hope and tried not to focus on the negatives.  However, it was tough with the way things were around the farm.  My mother was always trying to keep our house as clean as she could keep it.  She swept all day and when we wasn’t sweeping she was cleaning something else.  Our clean dishes were always dirty, there was dirt in our beds, on floors, everywhere you could imagine.  My father was miserable, but he tried not to show it.  He would check on the fields every day to see if something had changed but, he was always disappointed.

      We thought that things couldn’t get worse, but we were all wrong.  My family wasn’t the only ones suffering, it was the whole region.  Soon, it started to effect the new generations of life.  Small children were starting to get sick, because of the dust filling out in their lungs.  Even staying inside didn’t help, the dust would get to you no matter what you did.  My youngest sister got sick first, shes five and coughs all the time.  My mother makes us all wear a mask around our nose and mouth so we don’t breathe in as much.  It still didn’t completely stop the dust from getting us sick.  A few days went by and my sister was getting worse.  There was nothing anyone could really do for her, because of the condition she was in.  I think my mother and father knew what was about to happen.  Not only to my sister but to a lot of the children in our town.  Because of all the dust that just couldn’t be stopped, death of lives that haven’t even got to live to the fullest would soon be on our hearts.  The dust was getting worse and it seemed like nothing could be done about it.

      I didn’t think my life would ever be this way, I never imagined things would be this bad.  Because of the hard times with money and the banks closing our family has lost our farm, our home, and everything we owned except our personal belongings.  Times are hard and there’s nothing else we know to do, but to join the hooverville communities.  My family and I packed small bags and we walked towards the city looking for a place to try to build our own little shack.  We needed shelter and we knew we couldn’t live on the streets forever, so we searched for wood or metal that wasn’t being used to start building.  Piece by piece we had built a little shack that had just enough space for all of us.  It was a huge adjustment, our new home barely had four walls up and didn’t even have a bathroom.  Since we didn’t have money for food we always had to go to the bread line that came and gather enough food to last our family until they came back again.  That was probably the hardest part, I couldn’t eat when I was hungry because I knew tomorrow I would be hungrier than what I am today.  Life wasn’t pleasant at any times, it was became more of a challenge every single day.

      One day I woke up and heard my parents arguing.  My father seemed to be having a hard time cooping with the fact that he couldn’t provide for our family like he was use too.  My father was the type of man who liked to be in charge, he enjoyed knowing that he was the man of the house who brought in the money.  However, with the way things were the employment rate was very low.  My father had to get use to staying home with us and we could all tell that he was growing tired of it.  I listened to my parents arguing through the tin wall of the shack, I heard my father say that this just wasn’t the place for him to be anymore.  A few minutes later my mother started to cry as I heard my father leave.

      I didn’t see my mother for the rest of that day, she stayed away from us trying not to show how hurt she was.  The next morning she came to me and said that father had left to find work.  She told me that the trains would carry him and many others to far off places in search for jobs.  She didn’t have to say it, I already knew I probably would never see my father again.

      President Roosevelt did his job as president and gave us all hope that things would get better soon.  He started talking to Americans through the radio.  Even if you were poor, you could still afford a radio.  Everyone had them, in all of their homes, or even if you were on the streets people would find ways to listen to his broadcast.  He encouraged us to remain hopeful and believe in his word that he would fix our economy.  He talked to us as if we were his friends and he did everything in his power to help us.  Just the other night my mother and I were listening in and he even told the people that he wanted us to send him letters telling him about the situations we are in.  He wanted to help everyone in any way that he could.  My mother did send in a letter, but we never heard anything back.  I don’t think we were really doing as bad as some others out there are.  We have a roof over our head and we make due with food.  Even though he never got back to us I still believed in him.  I trusted his word that he would help us through these hard times.