Timothy Egan's book (a National Book Award Winner) focuses on several small towns in the High Plains of Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico and the "perfect storm" that created the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. This true account of the lives of several people is very moving, especially for me as the grandchild of a Dust Bowl survivor.

This book first caught my attention because my grandmother was born and raised in the Texas panhandle, in a small town called Dalhart. Like many of the towns in the area, Dalhart was built on dreams and the raging prosperity of the 1920s. Wheat was more valuable than gold and farmers were plowing up the prairie to plant acres of it. But when the unusual rains stopped and the wheat market collapsed, towns like Dalhart nearly died as the residents fled for California. And while much of this basic information was taught in my American history classes, I had no knowledge of the despair, illness, death, and poverty endured by those who lived through the dust storms of the Dirty Thirties.

As an avid genealogist, I am always looking for details to fill in the gaps about my ancestors beyond birth and death dates. This book does just that -- Egan brings to life the people who coped with the relentless storms and grinding poverty. He says that "At its peak, the Dust Bowl covered one hundred million acres...[and] more than a quarter-million people fled" towns like Dalhart (p. 9). Yet Egan does not share the plight of those who fled. He leaves that to writers like John Steinbeck who wrote The Grapes of Wrath. Instead, Egan focuses his work on those who never left - "for lack of money or lack of sense, the people who hunkered down out of loyalty or stubbornness, who believed in tomorrow because it was all they had in the bank" (p. 9-10). It is these people that Egan brings to life in his work, the farmers and ordinary people who stayed and whose stories have been largely forgotten.

His narrative follows several families during the years of 1901 to 1939, with an epilogue set in 2005 and featuring the aging children of the Dirty Thirties. Following these families' stories brings a fascinating humanity to this tragic time when dust storms reached as far east as Washington, DC, New York City, and the Atlantic Ocean.

When I told my grandmother that I was reading this book, she recognized many of the names of leading Dalhart citizens such as Uncle Dick Coon and Doc Dawson and places such as Denrock Street, the Mission Theater, and the XIT Ranch (once the largest cattle ranch in the United States). Though I have been to Dalhart, it was a visit of just a few hours. But now that I have read Egan's book, I understand a bit better the horror of the time - and not just from the dust storms, but from the destitution of the Great Depression, too. And I understand my grandmother a bit better, too.

If you are descended from someone who lived in or left one of these communities, or if you're simply interested in American history and stories of people coping with extreme hardships, this book is a good reading choice for you. In his introduction Egan reminds us that the stories of the Dust Bowl survivors are fading away as they die off one by one. Their stories need to be heard. Isn't that what genealogy is about: remembering and documenting the lives of those who have gone before us so that we can ultimately know and understand ourselves?

There are several iconic photographs included in the book, along with a map, and a detailed index to names and places. Click here to find new paperback copies of The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl which cost $10.17 on Amazon.com or $14.95 at your local bookseller. There are several used copies available at Amazon.com as well.

Link to the publisher's site and discussion questions:

For more info, visit these links which include photos and stories about The Dust Bowl:
memory.loc.gov
www.npr.org
www.pbs.org

Review written by Larisa Schumann