Being a stamp collector, I look at old postcards, not for the cards but for the stamps affixed to them. A year or so ago, I found a bunch of cards in a Harrow antique store to/from Mrs. W. Henderson of Eva Oklahoma. Her first name was Caroline. For some reason this sounded familiar to me and I googled her. She is Caroline Henderson, teacher, mother, farmer and writer. She lived from 1877 to 1966. She wrote articles in different publications. She wrote about farm life. During the drought, dust storms and privation she was also published in The Atlantic Monthly.
Yesterday I went antiquing along Wyandotte St. E. here in Windsor. I walked into a backroom of one store and found about 8 issues of the Atlantic. Now this journal has been publishing since 1857, one hundred and fifty one years! Of the 8 issues in stock of the over 1800 they've published, I actually found the May 1936 that carried Caroline's "Letters from the Dust Bowl!" This kind of thing always happens to me. I'm very lucky in many ways! (Not the lottery kind of way but lucky none the less!) A wonderful addition to my postcard collection.
Her letters have been recently published in a new book, (the one pictured,)and I plan to order it also. The one postcard I have scanned mentions that they have been "putting everything in order... but it is no purpose though there has been plenty of wind. I am still hoarding about a gallon of water for wetting out throats. Fortunately it is warmer and the cattle for the present can drink from the snow water pools."
