The setting for The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is 1930s Texas when the Great Plains is no longer a land of abundance but a dust bowl replete of top soil and drought conditions make farming close to impossible. The story follows Elsa who comes from a well-to-do banking family but feels rejected. When she meets Rafe Martinelli from a family of Italian immigrants she finally finds a family who accept her. It isn't long before Rafe leaves the dying farm and, Elsa, with a child suffering from respiratory problems decides to try her chances in California where one set of problems is replaced by another. They do not subside and she finds instead she is just one of many escaping from the Plains in search of work.
My thoughts:
I can't imagine a time when both economic depression and the catastrophic drought which caused dust to swirl like tornadoes in the Great Plains made life impossibly difficult. Elsa showed strength in attempting to find a better life for her children but some bad choices brought about a sad ending to the story. I would have liked her to achieve something despite the odds.
I can't imagine a time when both economic depression and the catastrophic drought which caused dust to swirl like tornadoes in the Great Plains made life impossibly difficult. Elsa showed strength in attempting to find a better life for her children but some bad choices brought about a sad ending to the story. I would have liked her to achieve something despite the odds.
Farming in the Great Plains plowed up natural grasses to be replaced by corn and wheat. When the drought began there were no natural plants to keep the soil anchored and great waves of dust permeated everything. In 1935 - Black Sunday - more than 300,000 tons of Great Plains soil was dispersed which was more than the soil dug to build the Panama Canal. Many people headed toward California to work in the cotton fields but because so many people descended on the state they were met with angry Californians who had been used to Mexican field workers coming for the season and then returning home to Mexico. Now thousands of people had descended on the towns which were ill equipped to provide housing, school and medical help for the outsiders. Unsanitary camps were set up near the Central Valley farms in which disease spread rapidly. Unscrupulous farmers paid fewer and fewer daily wages in the form of chits to be used at the over priced company store and unions were then thought of as saviors of the situation.
