First Hand Accounts: A "Dust Bowl Diary"

Source material: "Dust Bowl Diary"
Anne Marie Low

In addition to the Great Depression, during the 1930s residents of the Great Plains endured the worst drought recorded in the history of the United States. Crops failed and livestock died. Huge dust storms turned day into night covering the area in clouds of dirt, soot, and dust.

Ann Marie Low lived in southeastern North Dakota. Born in 1912, Ann Marie kept diaries from 1927 to 1937. The diary describes the daily struggle with the dust storms that invaded North Dakota, and it conveys the hard work (usually without benefit of electricity) that was the lot of women on the farm.

The last entry in her diary, dated June 4, 1937, when she was twenty-five years old, records her frustration at her lost youth and the bleak prospects for the future: “This is a round that will go on forever. At least it will go on until my youth is gone. Somehow, I’ve got to get out!!”

April 25, 1934 Wednesday

Last weekend was the worst dust storm we ever had. We’ve been having quite a bit of blowing dirt every day 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…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 besides the fence post to the next.

Newspapers say the deaths of many babies and old people are attributed to breathing in so much dirt.

May 7, 1934 Monday

The dirt is still blowing. Last weekend Bud (her brother) and I helped with the cattle and had fun gathering weeds. Weeds give us greens for salad long before anything in the garden is ready…

Still no job. I’m trying to persuade Dad that I should apply for rural school #3 out here where we go to school. I don’t see a chance of getting a job in high school when so many experienced teachers are out of work.

He argues that the pay is only $60.00 a month out here, while even in a grade school in time I might get $75.00. Extra expenses in town would probably eat up that extra $15.00. Miss Eston, the practice teaching supervisor, told me her salary has been cut to $75.00 after all the years she has been teaching in Jamestown. She wants to get married. School boards will not hire married women teachers in these hard times because they have husbands to support them. Her fiancé is the sole support of his widowed mother and can’t support a wife, too. So she is just stuck in her job, hoping she won’t get another salary cut because she can scarcely love on what she makes and dress the way she is expected to.


May 21, 1934, Monday

Ethel has been having stomach trouble. Dad has been taking her to doctors through suspecting her trouble is the fact that she often goes on a diet that may affect her health. The local doctor said he might be chronic appendicitis, so Mama took Ethel by train to Valley City last week to have a surgeon there remove her appendix.
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 that 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 D.C., 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 ham, bread, and cookies for the men, as no telling when mama will be back.

May 30, 1934, Wednesday

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 on loaf left of the breas I baked the weekend before. I looked in the cooler box down the well (our refrigerator) and found a little 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 started 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 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. Dad is 6 feet 4 inches tall, with a big frame. Bud is 6 feet 3 inches and almost as big boned as Dad. We say feeding him is like filling a silo.

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…I’m sorry I snapped at Cap. It isn’t his fault, or anyone’s fault, but I was tired and cross.

Life is what the newspapers call “the Dust Bowl” is becoming a gritty nightmare.