As you might expect from a novel about the Great Depression, this was a grim, and unrelenting story of struggle, but a well, worthwhile read. The plot follows the life of Elsa, who grew up in a small town in Texas. Her family was well off, as her father owned a farm machinery store and in 1921, when Elsa turned 21, agriculture was booming.
She had an extremely unhappy childhood. Unlike her two sisters, she was plain looking, and unloved by her parents. At the age of 14, after nearly dying of rheumatic fever, her parents, thinking she had a weak heart, kept her pretty much confined to the house. During those years, Elsa spent a lonely time, reading novels and dreaming of a normal life of freedom and love.
By her twenty-first birthday, she realized that if she didn’t make a stand, she would be doomed to a life as an old maid. She secretly sewed herself a slinky dress of red silk and one night she cut off her long blonde hair, to make a more fashionable bob, and then snuck out of the house, headed for the local speakeasy and freedom.
Fearing the wrath of her businessman father, the speakeasy refused to let her in. Left on the street, she met Rafe, an Italian boy her age, who lived in a nearby hamlet. They made love in the bed of his pickup truck, and planned to meet again. After their second encounter, Elsa discovered she was pregnant.
When her condition became evident, all hell broke loose in her family. Her parents disowned her, drove her out to Rafe’s parent’s farm, and left her. Rafe’s parents were of course also very upset, but being strong Catholics, they forced Rafe to marry her, and Elsa became a member of their family.
Farm work was completely new to Elsa, but she was determined to fit in, she worked hard, didn’t complain, and soon became fully accepted into the family. Living on the farm was the first time Elsa felt like she was loved. She had a daughter, who they named Loreda, and later a son named Anthony, who was nicknamed Ant.
Rafe, who had always hated farming, dreamed to living out in the world, and their daughter Loreda, seemed to inherent the same wanderlust. When the extreme droughts and dust storms began and remained, making the farm unproductive, both Rate and young Loreda talked of the faraway places they would escape to, but after a time, Rafe couldn’t stand it any more, and in the dead of night, abandoned the farm, his parents, and his family, never to be seen again.
Both Elsa and Loreda were devastated, and inconsolable Loreda, blamed her mother for causing her father to leave, because her mother had always refused to leave the farm and Rafe’s parents, every time Rafe begged her to leave and to go to California.
The drought and dust storms increased and were unrelenting. Crop failure, after crop failure, continued. Without money, the farm family had long given up using their truck, but soon even their horse and milk cow died. When Ant almost died from dust inhalation, Elsa and her in-laws realized, that Elsa and the kids had to leave for the sake of Ant’s health.
The in-laws gave her the farm truck, and the money they had recently gotten from Government Relief, and Elsa and her children joined the migration of destitute people to California. When they finally arrived, they quickly realized they were caught in a trap, almost as bad as the drought.
Any jobs in California, had long been taken. As more refugees came pouring in, they were treated horribly, exploited by the rich landowners, who squeezed them unrelentingly, with low wages, and horrific living and working conditions. In the towns, the refugees where discriminated against, demeaned, and even refused emergency medical care at the hospitals. They were cheated, and abused.
Maturing Loreda, soon became a communist, because they were the only organization fighting to help the starving workers. The dire conditions they were forced to live under, became so bad that even Elsa began to openly revolt.
As I read, I found many things in the novel, that are still relevant today. The inhospitable and extreme weather, the migration of poor people seeking a better life, and the hatred aimed at them.
I hadn’t known that before the Depression, Mexicans came to California in the spring to work through the summer and fall on the farms. Political racism made the California state government deport them all, leaving the farms without needed workers. To solve their employment problem, when the Depression hit, Big Agriculture printed and sent out thousands of pamphlets to states facing drought; telling workers to come to California, because there were lots of jobs.
They came, and came, and came by the thousands; so many came, that farm owners were able to lower wages to starvation levels, severely exploiting the workers with unliveable low pay and terrible working conditions. In California, the “Okies” as they were called, became the new Mexicans, and like the Mexican’s before them, they were discriminated against, and hated.
The Four Winds, was a tough book to read, because it was so well written. As I read it, I too felt the hopelessness of the unrelenting conditions of the drought and Depression, but it was a good read. I learned some new things about the period, and was happy that it was the book I had picked up to read.
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