Caroline Henderson
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By: University of Oklahoma Press
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5
Average rating: 5.0 of 5
Dreams can save a person from an otherwise mean life 5 out of 5 stars.
24 of 24 people found this review helpful.
Alvin Turner likes to quip that "Letters from the Dustbowl" is the "best written book" that the University of Oklahoma Press will publish this year. Indeed, Caroline Henderson, the author of the columns and letters it contains, may be the most quoted authority on the social aspects of the dustbowl. Her views on Oklahoma farm life were disseminated across the country both in her columns for "Ladies' World," and her "Letters from the Dustbowl," were published in "Atlantic Monthly." In selecting material for this book, Turner told me that he had twice as many columns and letters than would fit. Alvin Turner is the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. Caroline Henderson moved to a farm near Eva, Oklahoma, in 1907. During the next six decades, she and her husband, Will, endured the hardship of depressions and the dustbowl on their farm, with really only one bumper crop to show for their labors. Turner's overall introduction, as well as his introduction to each section, does well to place Henderson's life in context. She had great dreams for her life, both as a literate woman and as a farmer but by the end of her life, she is disillusioned and considers herself a failure.
Most of Henderson's farming experience demonstrates that dreams can save a person from an otherwise mean life. In 1917 she wrote, "The fact that we cannot see the end does not relieve us of our obligation to push forward, to gain every inch we can in humanity's forward march." As a young farm wife, she met challenges with inventiveness, and hardship with strong will. Even as crops withered and neighbors moved away, she finds beauty in flowers and friendship in animals. However, too many failed crops and dried-up dreams took their toll on Henderson's optimism. In 1952, she wrote in a letter to her daughter, "Every day seems to bring some new sorrow in these last years of fruitless effort and disappointment." With dreams dashed, Henderson loses all sense of proportion and she reads each setback as catastrophe.
"Letters from the Dust Bowl" is as heartbreaking as it is inspirational. Al Turner is right; it's a very well written book.
Editorial Review:
Caroline Henderson was a Mount Holyoke graduate who moved to Oklahoma's panhandle to homestead and teach in 1907. This collection of Henderson's letters and articles published form 1908 to 1966 presents an intimate portrait of a woman's life in the Great Plains. Her writing mirrors her love of the land and the literature that sustained her as she struggled for survival.
