Iowa
In the stifling summer of ‘34
when drought hit Iowa hard
like brick on bone
my grandma Blanche packed up the family
for another Midnight Shhhhh! Move
(before the landlord came for the rent)
This time they hitched a ride
out of Council Bluffs to Lake Manawah
and settled in a summer cottage
They squatted there year-round
as did other families, who had
their own stories of landlords
Blanche fed every man who rode the rails
They put up signs for the next hobos:
A cat (“kind lady”) and two shovels (“work here”)
She felt that every person deserved food, medicine, and
shelter (today, this is called Socialism) and that
giving the men a task helped build their egos
So Dorney swept the steps and Gibb fed the chickens
(“borrowed” by Blanche on their way out of town)
while another collected eggs and so on. They never
stayed long. Blanche later insisted the term “Hobo”
was not slander but, as in H.L. Mencken’s writings,
it meant “homeward bound.” Indeed, some went “home”
right in their back room, too sick, too weary to go on.
Blanche knew the doctor, got them morphine, helped them
sip broth. She also washed them, like family, before burial.
When I asked my mom about those days, it began a years-long,
booze-fed, continuing conversation about poverty, the
Dust Bowl, generosity, and the human spirit. Blanche, before her
in those days, was Ma Joad incarnate, with a touch of
Woody Guthrie. “But Mom,” I said, “you got to live in a
cottage by a lake. Where did Grandpa get that kind of money?”
My mother Charlotte, Blanche’s only daughter,
gazed out the back window and smiled ruefully: “Child, it
may have been a lake, but there was no water in it back then.”
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Sunday Scribblings, the prompt is apropos: Drought. The Great Depression coincided with one of the worst droughts in American history. Bad agricultural practices were largely to blame, and it seems all we’ve learned is how to bio-engineer Frankenseeds to forestall the inevitable. Indigenous Americans knew how to plant and harvest; how to move south in the colder months, giving the land a chance to renew; and how to treat the earth with respect.
NOTE: Ma Joad is one of the main characters in John Steinbeck’s classic novel, The Grapes Of Wrath. The movie starred Henry Fonda as Tom, the eldest son, and Jane Darwell as Ma. Her embodiment of that character, Ma’s feistiness and compassion, won her an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress of 1940.
I like to think of Blanche in those days as part Ma Joad, part Steinbeck. Although she never wrote a book, Blanche was a voracious reader and self-taught scholar. That’s how she knew about Mencken, Upton Sinclair, and the like. She went to her grave despising Ayn Rand’s opinion that “altruism is evil” and her novel, The Fountainhead, which espoused that every person should look after themselves: “If we hadn’t lived near the tracks, who would have fed them? All the other houses had hobo signs like rectangles with a dot in the middle, ‘Dangerous.’ People thought I was nuts to try to feed these men. I guess that’s why I got committed eventually – Bill thought so too. But what’s crazy about taking care of each other in hard times?”
I’m proud to be Blanche Laughlin’s granddaughter. This is also at my poetic lake with water IN IT, Poets United.
Aug 18, 2012 @ 23:51:45
Midnight Shhhhh! Move
The signage for the homeward bound
Tender last rites
The least of us giving the most
Imagination making the hard times good
What a wonderful family story you have.
Aug 19, 2012 @ 00:32:42
Thanks, Annie. It runs, the entire history, for pages and pages. One day I will dedicated myself to writing a “momoir” of her stories. Peace, Amy
Aug 19, 2012 @ 00:38:04
Your genes have a lot of Blanche in them. This is truly a great story/poem.
I love Steinbeck, too.
Aug 23, 2012 @ 00:40:07
Thanks, Viv! Yes, Steinbeck, one of the truly honest writers, along with Upton Sinclair. Love social justice, both in fiction and non-fiction.
Aug 19, 2012 @ 01:23:03
I hate to think that the spirit of charity that you so beautifully describe in this wonderful piece of writing is slowly being lost to this generation. We didn’t consider ourselves poor 60-70 years ago but our house was never locked as there was never anything in it worth stealing. I never thought then that I was deprived of anything.
Aug 23, 2012 @ 00:54:18
Amen, Robin. These are the values under which I was raised.
Aug 19, 2012 @ 05:59:52
What an end line..and such strong characters..no doubt there are things we do not wish to inherit from our past but I agree with Vivinfrance that these radiant qualities of human spirit have been handed on..jae
Aug 19, 2012 @ 07:53:51
That last line—wow! Very well written story.
Aug 19, 2012 @ 12:12:40
Amazing how many stories about the ‘Dust Bowl’ years that can be told and of the spirited people who survived during that time. Well Written!
Aug 19, 2012 @ 14:51:37
i didn’t have to read your notes to know that this was like The Grapes of Wrath. When my older son was ten, I had him read it, then the play was in town, we saw the play and then watched the movie on a video. As if that was not enough, he had to write a comparative essay on the three. Yes, at ten. He got dual bachelor degrees in English and Theater. I wonder if that had anything to do with it??
street rubbish
Aug 19, 2012 @ 15:34:12
I enjoyed hearing your family story. Your grandmother sounds like a very strong woman. Loved the part where you spoke of her kindness, and followed it with the line “(today, this is called Socialism).”
Aug 19, 2012 @ 15:47:41
Very well written; nostalgic. (From another Tom Joad.)
Aug 19, 2012 @ 16:53:14
The truth is almost always better than fiction. Your Grandmother stands immortalized by her dear Granddaughter. Hobos aka homeless are not dangerous freeloaders, generally speaking, which seems to be the thought process of the 1% today, generally speaking. Thank you for this beautiful post about your Grandmother…
Aug 19, 2012 @ 17:13:05
This reminds me of my Grandma who also feed the gandys(as she called them, the ones who worked on the railroad), and yes, they’d mark the houses someway so the next one would know where to come. And we live not far from Council Bluffs.
Aug 19, 2012 @ 18:23:10
You made the story jump out of the page. Such a pleasure to read this!
dregs
Aug 19, 2012 @ 20:02:33
A fabulous story about an important time and an important woman…..
Aug 19, 2012 @ 23:39:10
you have much to be proud of, as does she in you, Amy!
i despised ‘The Fountainhead’ too.
♥
Aug 20, 2012 @ 09:17:28
That was really unique. I’m new to the whole Sunday Scribblings prompt thing, so discovering all sorts of really different, unique blogs. It’s such a pleasure to read this, it’s nostalgic and subtly humorous. The last line was fabulous.
Aug 20, 2012 @ 15:51:41
Amy, what a story, what heart, what pathos–went straight for the tear ducts. We are all in this together, gotta try and take care of each other. You certainly care for my spirit with your wonderful words. Thank you
Aug 21, 2012 @ 18:31:03
What a wonderful poem about generosity of spirit!
Aug 30, 2012 @ 06:54:28
This is wonderful. Thanks for giving me this link. I too grew up with a grandmother who had a cat and two shovels at the end of the lane. She used to tell me that sometimes when she went to bed, she would remember that she had been so busy all day that she herself had forgotten to eat. I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for her. What a powerful write.