Want to learn the ideas in The Worst Hard Time better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of The Worst Hard Time by Patrick Lawlor, Timothy Egan, et al here.
Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.
Video Summaries of The Worst Hard Time
We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on The Worst Hard Time, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Patrick Lawlor, Timothy Egan, et al.
1-Page Summary of The Worst Hard Time
Overall Summary
Introduction
The Great Plains are a vast, empty place. The land is so big that it scares people away. It scared everyone from Spanish settlers to Germans who came for gold and the Comanche Indians who chased bison over the grasslands. Even today’s drivers get scared when they drive across the prairie due to its weather, which can be violent and extreme.
When one travels through the Great Plains, there is a lot of nothingness and only small traces of life. There are some shacks, trees with no leaves, and even an old schoolhouse that’s been destroyed by a storm. These “scraps of life” tell us about the history of the region—a place where great storms have ravaged it.
There are small farms in the area, and beyond that there are towns. Springfield is one of them. The town has less than two people per square mile, which makes it less populated than it was a hundred years ago.
A narrator named Egan goes to a house in the country. It’s made of “sturdy” stone and is off Main Street, near some other houses. A small woman answers the door and directs him to Ike Osteen. He’s fixing the roof on his house, which he calls drouth because that’s how people around here pronounce it (drought).
It’s only been a few years since the new millennium began, and people in the Southern Plains are worried about another drought. Some say that it will be worse than the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. However, Ike Osteen says that no one who lived through those times believes that.
Ike Osteen was one of nine children who grew up in a dugout. His father arrived via the Santa Fe Trail to settle on 320 acres that were available due to government programs. The land had good soil and his family decided to become homesteaders.
Ike’s father died when he was only forty-six years old. The family still had their 320 acres and a windmill, which pumped water 140 feet from the Ogallala Aquifer. The water came out of the ground and went into small storage tanks that were then used to supply the cattle with drinking water. This kept them fat because they had plenty of grass and water all year long. They also traded cream for food in town, including sugar, flour, coffee, liquor, etc., so they never really went hungry or thirsty even though they lived on such a large piece of land with no neighbors nearby.
In 1929, the year of the Great Depression, wheat prices crashed and there was no rain for years. The land had been turned over and was not held to the ground by sod anymore. This caused dust storms that were 10,000 feet high and moving mountains. Darkness covered the prairie states in America as well as other parts of America such as New York City. Livestock went mad due to lack of oxygen and people suffered from dust pneumonia because they inhaled too much dirt into their lungs.
Jeanne Clark is one of many people who suffered from the dust storms that occurred in the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl. She still has scarring on her lungs from pneumonia she got while living there. Her mother, Louise Walton, moved to Colorado City due to a respiratory problem and was told by doctors to move west if she wanted it healed. The area had been known for its dry air among “lungers” or “pilgrims with respiratory ailments”, since the late 1800s. People in Colorado City were called Little London because they all had English accents and came over due to foul industrial air back home in England. Louise’s health improved after moving there and then married a rancher named Ike Osteen after meeting him at church camp when Jeanne was young (she became his stepdaughter). Then, she gave birth to another daughter named Amy Osteen who grew up with Jeanne Clark as her sister (both are now adults) but unfortunately died tragically later on before turning 30 years old (at this point, we don’t know how or why yet).
