Okie Boy-The Great Depression and World War II

Not everyone who lived on an Oklahoma farm during the 1930s, the time known for the “dust bowl,” abandoned their farms and headed for California. Although many suffered crop failures and financial ruin, there were just as many or more who were able to make it through. The dust bowl, coupled with the Great Depression which struck America at the same time, resulted in hardship and suffering, both for the farmers who went looking for a new life, and for those who were able to stick it out.



This book is a story about a family who “stuck it out.” Gene Ralston tells the story of the lives of a family of seven who lived in a two-room house, scratching out their lives on a dry-land farm, running a few cattle and several hundred White Leghorn chickens. Without running water, electricity or a telephone, the family existed on a survival level, gradually growing out of it as their fortunes improved. Having survived the dust bowl, the family was dumped into the rationing and shortages we all experienced during World War Two.



This book is about people. Real live people, some with real, live problems, such as one epileptic brother, another who was an alcoholic, some real characters, such as the real live cowboy, Gene’s Uncle George Ralston, larger than life and a legend in his own time. This book is filled with these people, and tells the inside story of them and of Gene and his family.