Diary Entries
Personal journals and diary entries are examples of primary sources. Read the following
actual accounts from the Dust Bowl. Focus on the tone and mood as you read. Compare the
events described in the diary entries of the three women.
Mabel Holmes Diary:
March 15,1935.
Elma's boys are in a tournament at High School tonight. A terrible wind & dust storm, could not hang out the clothes.
Max moved to 1134 Polk & at Gt Bend Ks & Scottsbluff Nebr. the wind & dust is so bad motorists have had to stop. New
preacher called on us.
March 16, 1935
Temp. went from 82 to 24 today. The dust wave blew allnight, at times could not see, everything covered with dirt.
Dried the clothes in the bath room, got them ironed, Another war scare in Europe Max was here all P.M. Several deaths
& accidents from the Dust storms, trains were late.
March 20, 1935
A severe dust storm raged over the city all day, could not see Dibbles plaza, nor to get around in the house without a
light. Paul Stanley raked & burned the leaves while it was going on & I was worried all the time. Motor traffic was
stopped in Topeka for those going West.
March 21, 1935
The houses are in a terrible condition from the storm. Was over an hr. getting dust off of porches & walks, more dust
flying, but do not need lights
March 22, 1935
Did nothing with the dirt in the house yesterday, the task is so gigantic. For 57 years there never was a dust storm here
like this. It is due to the long period of drought.
March 15,1937
Temp 16?. A beautiful morning. Real nippy. Went to town this P.M. Mr. Palmer & Bernice took us tonight to the opening
of the new East Side Jr. High School. While 800 people were there the lights went out & the folks had to go home.
Ann Marie Low’s Diary:
April 25, 1934
Last weekend was the worst dust storm we ever had. We've been having quite a bit of blowing dirt every year since the
drought started, not only here, but all over the Great Plains. Many days this spring the air is just full of dirt coming,
literally, for hundreds of miles. It sifts into everything. After we wash the dishes and put them away, so much dust sifts
into the cupboards we must wash them again before the next meal. Clothes in the closets are covered with dust.
Last weekend no one was taking an automobile out for fear of ruining the motor. I rode Roany to Frank's place to return
a gear. To find my way I had to ride right beside the fence, scarcely able to see from one fence post to the next.
Newspapers say the deaths of many babies and old people are attributed to breathing in so much dirt.
May 21, 1934
Saturday Dad, Bud, and I planted an acre of potatoes. There was so much dirt in the air I couldn't see Bud only a few feet
in front of me. Even the air in the house was just a haze. In the evening the wind died down, and Cap came to take me to
the movie. We joked about how hard it is to get cleaned up enough to go anywhere.
The newspapers report that on May 10 there was such a strong wind the experts in Chicago estimated 12,000,000 tons of
Plains soil was dumped on that city. By the next day the sun was obscured in Washington, District of Columbia, and ships
300 miles out at sea reported dust settling on their decks.
Sunday the dust wasn't so bad. Dad and I drove cattle to the Big Pasture. Then I churned butter and baked a ham, bread,
and cookies for the men, as no telling when Mama will be back.
May 30, 1934
Ethel got along fine, so Mama left her at the hospital and came to Jamestown by train Friday. Dad took us both home.
The mess was incredible! Dirt had blown into the house all week and lay inches deep on everything. Every towel and
curtain was just black. There wasn't a clean dish or cooking utensil. There was no food. Oh, there were eggs and milk and
one loaf left of the bread I baked the weekend before. I looked in the cooler box down the well (our refrigerator) and
found a little ham and butter. It was late, so Mama and I cooked some ham and eggs for the men's supper because that
was all we could fix in a hurry. It turned out they had been living on ham and eggs for two days.
Mama was very tired. After she had fixed starter for bread, I insisted she go to bed and I'd do all the dishes.
It took until 10 o'clock to wash all the dirty dishes. That's not wiping them—just washing them. The cupboards had to be
washed out to have a clean place to put them.
Saturday was a busy day. Before starting breakfast I had to sweep and wash all the dirt off the kitchen and dining room
floors, wash the stove, pancake griddle, and dining room table and chairs. There was cooking, baking, and churning to be
done for those hungry men.
Mama couldn't make bread until I carried water to wash the bread mixer. I couldn't churn until the churn was washed
and scalded. We just couldn't do anything until something was washed first. Every room had to have dirt almost
shoveled out of it before we could wash floors and furniture.
We had no time to wash clothes, but it was necessary. I had to wash out the boiler, wash tubs, and the washing machine
before we could use them. Then every towel, curtain, piece of bedding, and garment had to be taken outdoors to have
as much dust as possible shaken out before washing. The cistern is dry, so I had to carry all the water we needed from
the well.
That evening Cap came to take me to the movie, as usual. Ixnay. I'm sorry I snapped at Cap. It isn't his fault, or anyone's
fault, but I was tired and cross. Life in what the newspapers call "the Dust Bowl" is becoming a gritty nightmare.
Karen Hesse’s Diary:
March 1934
The wind snatched that snow right off the fields, leaving behind a sea of dust, waves and waves and waves of dust,
rippling across our yard. Daddy came in, he sat across from Ma and blew his nose. Mud streamed out. He coughed and
spit out mud. If he had cried, his tears would have been mud too, but he didn’t cry. And neither did Ma.
November 1934
The dust stopped, and it snowed. Real snow. Dreamy Christmas snow, gentle, nothing blowing, such calm, like after a
fever, wet, clinging to the earth, melting into the dirt, snow. Oh, the grass, and the wheat and the cattle, and the
rabbits, and my father will be happy.
January 1935
Dust piles up like snow across the prairie, dunes leaning against fences, mountains of dust pushing over barns…can’t
afford to feed his cows, can’t afford to sell them..Too hard to watch their lungs clog with dust, like our chickens,
suffocated.
February 1935
They left a couple weeks after the baby came, all of them crammed inside that rusty old truck. I ran half a mile in their
dust to catch them…choking on a cloud that rose behind them. They were heading west. And no one was looking back.
March 1935
Last Friday Pete Guymon took ill with dust pneumonia…a couple hours ago Pete Guymon died.
We’ll be back when it rains they say, settin gout with their bedsprings and mattresses, their cookstoves and dishes, their
kitchen tables, and their milk goats tied to their running boards setting out for California…
April 1935
We watched as the storm swallowed the light. The sky turned from blue to black, night descended in and instant and
the dust was on us…Dust lay two feet deep in ripply waves across the parlor floor, dust blanketed the cookstove, the
icebox, the kitchen chairs, everything deep in dust. And the piano…buried in dust.
Caroline Henderson:
EVA, Okalhoma
June 30, 1935
DEAR EVELYN: —
Your continued interest in our effort to 'tie a knot in the end of the rope and hang on' is most stimulating. Our recent
transition from rain-soaked eastern Kansas with its green pastures, luxuriant foliage, abundance of flowers, and promise
of a generous harvest, to the dust-covered desolation of No Man's Land was a difficult change… Wearing our shade hats,
with handkerchiefs tied over our faces and Vaseline in our nostrils, we have been trying to rescue our home from the
accumulations of wind-blown dust which penetrates wherever air can go. It is an almost hopeless task, for there is rarely
a day when at some time the dust clouds do not roll over. 'Visibility' approaches zero and everything is covered again
with a silt-like deposit which may vary in depth from a film to actual ripples on the kitchen floor… we decided, like most
of our neighbors, to ship our cattle to grass in the central part of the state… Naturally you will wonder why we stay
where conditions are so extremely disheartening. Why not pick up and leave as so many others have done? We can't
hold out indefinitely without some return from the land, some source of income, however small. But I think I can never
go willingly or without pain that as yet seems unendurable.
August 11, 1935
MY DEAR Evelyn:
You asked about the soil erosion control programme and what could be done with an allowance of ten cents per acre.
That amount just about covers actual expense of fuel and oil for listing with a large tractor. As a matter of fact, the
complete absence of rain has given us no chance to test the effectiveness of the contour listing.
January 8, 1936
DEAR EVELYN:
The desolation of the countryside would admittedly have meant the ruin of the small towns, entirely dependent as they
are upon country patronage… I think I told you of shipping our cattle to pasture. It proved to be a disastrous mistake.
Our experience was duplicated in that of many of our neighbors, most of whom, on finding their cattle in far worse
condition in the fall than in the spring, decided to sell for whatever their stock would bring. So good night, dear friend,
and a happier to-morrow.
March 8, 1936
DEAR EVELYN:
Since I wrote to you, we have had several bad days of wind and dust. On the worst one recently, old sheets stretched
over door and window openings, and sprayed with kerosene, quickly became black and helped a little to keep down the
irritating dust in our living rooms. The prospects for a wheat crop in 1936 still remain extremely doubtful. There has
been no moisture of any kind since the light snow of early January. We do however plan to purchase a new tractor
within a few succeeding days. the company took orders for three tractors ranging in price from around $1200 to $1500.
Some people must still have faith in the future!
March 13, 1936
We must try to get this mailed tomorrow. It has been a terrible week, with one day of almost complete obscurity, and
others when only a part of the sun's rays struggled through the gloom with a strange bluish luminance. On days like this,
when William Vaughn Moody's expression 'dust to eat' suggests a literal danger, we can't help questioning whether the
traits we would rather think of as courage and perseverance are not actually recklessness and inertia
What is life like for someone who lived at this time?
Compare the events described in the diary entries of the three women.