migrant mother

The great depression of 1929.   What a terrible time to live through.   I cannot fathom just how miserable it must have been during the depression.   The hopelessness.   The woman in the picture is a migrant mother who was a field worker.   The picture was taken at a pea-pickers field camp in Nipomo, California in 1936.  Her name was Florence Owens Thompson.  The children are Ruby at her right shoulder, Katherine at her left shoulder, and Norma is the baby in her lap.  A photographer took her picture in 1936 and the picture came to symbolize the plight of the farm workers during the depression.   She was age 32 when her picture was taken.   She must have been quite a fighter because she survived and lived to age 80.   The picture below was taken 43 years after the great depression picture and she was age 75 at the time.   The three women with her are her daughters in the picture above.

From left to right the daughters are Katherine, Norma, and Ruby who is squatted down.   Of course that is their mother Florence seated in the chair.   Go back and take a look at the children in the picture above and realize how well her children succeeded when they grew to adults.   They started with nothing and ended up successful.  Here is a picture of Katherine today holding the famous picture of them with their mother.

She has her own home which looks to be pretty nice.   Quite an accomplishment.  Did the adversity that they faced growing up make them stronger?   People really were a hearty stock years ago.   Like the song says "only the strong survive".  

The necklace that Florence is wearing in the picture above looks to be of an indian design to me.   It is hard to tell because the picture is so blurry.   It would be logical since Florence was born Florence Leona Christie, a full-blooded Cherokee from Oklahoma.   She was also the granddaughter of Ned Christie, who was a Cherokee, a well respected, man and in 1895 was a Cherokee senator.  

He was falsely accused of murdering a marshal, hunted by a posse and killed.

An eyewitness testified years later that Ned Christie had not killed the marshal.   And so his good name was cleared.  

What a colorful heritage Florence Thompson had.   And it looks like life turned out alright for her and that the bad days of the great depression are just a memory for her.   The picture of her as a migrant mother now resides in the Library of Congress.   And in 1998 the United States Post Office put her picture on a postage stamp to commemorate her life.   There is lots of information on the internet about Florence Owens Thompson and "migrant mother".   Do some searches because it is really a very interesting story. 

I sometimes wonder if there may be another depression looming on the horizon with the economy being so bad.   Will I get to experience what this woman went through?   Would I be strong enough to weather a depression as she did?   I sincerely hope that I don’t find out.   With the presidential elections near, these thoughts of the country’s finances and the image of the migrant mother loom in my mind.   Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best, and of course vote for the right person.   But most of all, Vote!    Lew