Destruction of the Dust Bowl: Personal Expirience

We had bought the house right after we earned the land it sat on. Dad was paying $500 a month, but with the dust it was hard to make end meets. The bank was after us and they had threatened to knock our house down if payments weren’t made. Dad had tried his hardest, but on August 24, 1931 he had lost the fight against cancer. 3 months later tractors with buckets came to the house telling us that we had 2 hours to pack up anything we needed to move. They were tearing the house down. 

I got so mad that I grabbed mom and pulled her into the house and grabbed a shotgun. I ran outside putting the barrel between the eyes of the banker man, telling him I was bound to shoot him if he pushed the house down. He said I was too young and scared to shoot him. I cycled the gun through and his veins ran cold. I went back to the house and told mom to start packing our things and putting it in the bobtail truck we had. As mom packed, I held the gun to the man that was in charge. Mom yelled that she was done. 

The banker man told the tractor operators to start pushing. I told him you better tell them to stop, but he replied “what is started ain’t stopping till it is done.” The second the tractor hit the west wall I pulled the trigger and cycled the gun again. I ran to the truck and started driving. Mom and I went to Texas On the way to Texas we had to stop for gas, I was so shaky that I could barely get out of the truck. While I was getting gas the tractor that had destroyed the house drove by. They stopped to fuel up and one of the guys came over to me and said I was going with him to the county sheriff office. 

I reached into the truck and grabbed the gun off of the seat and pointed it in the direction of the gas pump and told him,”Put a hand on me and everyone around this gas station will be burned to death in seconds.” He walked off, and got on his tractor, and left. We were back on the road again when I quit paying attention to the speed. I was going 75 down an old county road. It started to rain and I could not see any-thing. I got onto the interstate highway. I started to gain speed when I started spinning into an uncontrolled spiral. 

The truck slid off the road into a muddy ditch and hit a fence. I looked over at mom and saw she was scared senseless. I tried backing up the hill but we just stayed there. After a few hours, I finally got back on the road. We got to Texas where we were staying with family for a while. I stayed up all night working on the truck. While fighting the mud, I had flattened a tire and overheated the back axle. The next morning I went into town to get parts and fix the truck.When I got back to the house mom was gone and Cousin Felix said she went on a date with a man named David. I ignored her and went to work on the truck. Mom showed up about 30 minutes later in an all black Ford A. 

The man that jumped out of the driver seat had on a lavender cowboy hat, leather gator skin boots and a new pair of jeans. He opened the passenger door and mom stepped out. They started walking over to the little barn on the side of the house where I was hard at work on the truck. I emerged from under the truck and wiped the rear end grease off my hand, and gave David a hand shake and introduced myself to him.