The Dust Bowl Days

By C.L. Vestal

Editor’s Note: My friend, C. L. Vestal, wrote this story for the second volume of Parmer County history, “Prairie Progress”. It is a first-hand account of the “dirty thirties” in Friona and the Texas Panhandle. DB

When we moved to Parmer County [Friona] in the late 1920’s, there were few fences and they all had dust blown into them. In some places the dust had shifted across the road and the comment among the people was: “Oh, that [land] should never had been broken out.”

In the early 30’s, we had dry years and crop failures. The Depression was in full swing and farmers didn’t have the money to buy tractors. Many were still farming to buy tractors. Many were still farming with horses and mules, but the farmer didn’t grow enough feed for the animals. The year 1934 was a very dry year. The farmers had sled(s) with a knife on the side that would cut the feed off even with the ground, then they would catch it by hand, and pile it on the sled. This would be hauled to the barn to be fed to the cows and horses. This type of operation left the fields bare and powdery, causing soil erosion. This condition prevailed from Canada to Mexico.

The beginning

One Sunday in early March of 1935, my mother and dad and I had Sunday dinner with friends, Mr. and Mrs. Ed New, who had moved west from Lamar County after we had moved here from Grayson County. About mid-afternoon we saw coming out of the west a dark red cloud made up of thousands of little whirlwinds jammed together, each one trying to get in the lead. We went back into the house and Dad sat down looking out of a south window. Mr. New was in the kitchen looking out the door. He had his left hand resting on a broom by the door facing. Mother, Mrs. New and I went in the bedroom to watch the storm out of the west window, but the dust hit before we got to the window, and as quick as the snap of your fingers—there was total darkness.

I held my hand out in front of me about six inches and I couldn’t see it! Mother and Mrs. New were uttering a few prayers on our behalf, and wondering what was going to happen next. Mrs. New, looking back into the kitchen, and saw that her stove still had a burner going, and since no self-respecting housewife would let the world come to an end with her cook stove still burning said, “Ed, turn off that burner, please.” So Mr. New turned around and walked across that ten-foot room, turned off the burner, and went back to the door to continue watching the storm. He began laughing and Mrs. New said, “Ed, this is no time to laugh.”

The total darkness seemed to last for about 20 minutes, but I’m sure it wasn’t but about three or four minutes. By then the darkness had changed from black to red. Visibility became a little better after the onslaught of the cloud. After the cloud had moved on, we realized that the world had not ended. Mr. New then apologized and told why he had laughed. As it turned out, when he crossed back from the stove to the door where had been standing with his left hand on the broom, he had his right hand on the broom and had been unable to tell the difference between the wall and the window! That was the darkest of all dustbowl storms! It had come out of the west accompanied by a rain cloud, as there were half a dozen drops of rain on the car.

The next morning when I got on the school bus, the wind was hard out of the west and Dad was forking tumbleweeds over the yard fence. That afternoon when I got off the school bus, the fencerows were piled not only with more weeds, but also with about two feet of dust that had blown into the weeds. The Dust Bowl Days had started— with total darkness and then the fence rows piled high—we had witnessed the first 24 hours.

More wind, more dust

From that start, it only grew worse. The wind would blow out of the west and got the fields to blowing. Then it would come back out of the north and scatter the dust back south. Back and forth it would go scouring the land clean. 1935 was a very dry year, with no crops harvested. 1936 was even worse, a little drier and a little dustier.

The wind in those days seemed to have a different gusto about it—a different twist and current. The really bad ones seemed always to blow in out of the north on a Sunday afternoon or night. I remember one storm hitting during church one Sunday night. We lived six long miles south of town and drove in the middle of the road and counted each mail box as we passed it so that we would know when we got to our own and where to turn in. Most people had nailed tarpaper over their west and north doors and windows to try to keep out some of the dust. Blow-dust reacted like mercury or quicksand when you were walking or driving through it. It was almost impossible even to shovel it.

To drive across a drift was an experience! One day our local doctor, Dr. Stover, was out in the country on a house call and his car stuck in a dust drift. All he could do was sit there until help came along. In about an hour help did come along and to make conversation the neighbor said, “Hi Doc, what’s the matter?” Doc’s reply was, “Can’t you see that I’m stuck in this dust drift?” Then the neighbor said, “There’s no dust under your wheels, just hard road!” The doctor opened his door and stepped out of his car. Sure enough the car had caused a different current around the wheels and the dust shifted out. The doctor then went on his way.

Gone with the wind

F. L. Spring General Merchandise was the social gathering place on Saturday afternoons in Friona. Some lady would be there visiting and buying more and different groceries than she normally would. She would be happy and smiling and telling about a brother-in-law in Oklahoma or wherever, who owned a small grocery store and who had a laying house that he used to keep hens in but didn’t use anymore, and “he asked us to move down there and we could fix up the hen-house to live in; it would be a much better house than we have now! He can’t pay us any money, but we could take our pay out in groceries.” Then someone would answer, “Say, that sounds good, are you going to take him up on it?” The reply, “Oh we don’t want to rush into this; his health is bad.” You knew all the time she would be lying: that they would have just hauled all their chickens and anything else they could sell. The old milk cow would bring $25.00. They filled their car with gasoline and bought some bologna for their lunch and by the time the sun was up the next morning, they would be gone. Most of us who stayed didn’t have a brother-in-law with bad health.

Hope returns

I met a fellow down in East Texas in the late 1960’s who was telling of the time he drove his Model D John Deere tractor with a three-row planter to town and turned it back to the finance company. With the wind blowing hard, the dust had become so deep that when he got to a certain place in the road, he realized he had driven over a three-wire fence. I told him that things had changed and had improved considerably and that he should come back for a visit. His reply, “No Siree, I promised the Good Lord that if He would help me get off the Plains, I’d never go back. Well, He kept His promise, and I’m going to keep mine.”

In the spring of 1936, we had west wind for 8 days consecutively. We could see our neighbor’s house, which was just a block away, only a while after sun-up and again just before sundown. All the pictures made of the Dust Bowl Days are very true and a good reminder that it could happen again, if the land doesn’t get the moisture and the proper care. In the fall of 1936, we got some rain and the farmers cultivated their land and sowed wheat.

There was a good wheat crop come 1937 and things began to improve. The community took on new hope and new life. All the home places took on a face lifting and the people’s spirits were high. Improved farming methods and knowledge on how to use that which God has given us has made our country a beautiful place to live.

The Dust Bowl March 1941