End of the Road: 1935

The smaller little girl appears to have some joint issues as well, alas, given the appearance of her ankles.

I guess this is one story's end we will probably never know. But whatever happened, at least they are not lost to history.

As a resident of Oklahoma now and lived here in my youth, I am amazed how ANY down-and-out person was from "Oklahoma" in all pitiful migrant photos from the 1930's. I have always wondered how 5 million "Okies" moved from Oklahoma which had barely over one million residents. Fascinating--maybe they subdivided on the way west...

[The population of Oklahoma in 1930 was 2.405 million; 10 years later it was 2.336 million, a loss of 69,000 people. Nobody is claiming that 5 million Oklahomans moved to California. - Dave]

I lived through the Depression. I thought I had it rough because my new Sears mail order shoes would come a week after school started and would be asked why I did not wear new shoes the first day of school. Seeing this family I now know what rough is. I do pray they got to California and their life improved.

When I look at this photo as a history buff, it's so sad and poignant and so succinctly conveys the hard times of The Dust Bowl...and I say a silent word of thanks for photographers like Lange.

But when I look it as a mother, I am shaken at how desperately *afraid* these parents must have been--seriously, sickeningly, scared of how they would feed these children and what the future held for this precarious little family during this nation's Hard Times. (And I always wonder if Ms. Lange parted with some hard candy for the urchins in the picture or slipped a few dollars to the father when no one was looking...)