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Dust Bowl Diary
“Life in what the newspapers call ‘the Dust Bowl’ is becoming a gritty nightmare,” Ann Marie Low wrote in 1934. Her diary vividly captures that “gritty nightmare” as it was lived by one rural family—and by millions of other Americans. The books opens in 1927—“the last of the good years”—when Ann Marie is a teenager living with her parents, brother, and sister on a stock farm in southeastern North Dakota. We follow her family and friends, descendants of homesteaders, through the next ten years—a time of searing summer heat and desiccated fields, dying livestock, dust to the tops of fence posts and prices at rock bottom—a time when whole communities lost their homes and livelihoods to mortgages and, hardest of all, to government recovery programs. We also see the coming to maturity of the author in the face of economic hardship, frustrating family circumstances, and the stifling restrictions that society then placed on young women. Ann Marie Low’s diary, supplemented with reminiscences, offers a rich, circumstantial view of rural life a half century ago: planting and threshing before the prevalence of gasoline-powered engines, washing with rain water and ironing with sadirons, hauling coal on sleds over snow-clogged roads, going to end-of-school picnics and country dances, and hoarding the egg and cream money for college. Here, too, is an iconoclastic on-the-scene account of how a federal work project, the construction of a wildlife refuge, actually operated. Many readers will recognize parts of their own past in Ann Marie Low’s story; for others it will serve as a compelling record of the Dust Bowl experience.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 8, 2026
~4.5 stars. I really enjoyed this book & learned a lot about daily life on the great plains in the early 20th century. Don’t presume because it took me 6 months to finish the book that it was dense, difficult, or boring. I just read very few actual hardcopy books, & I would just forget about it or not get around to it. It really kept my attention. Ms Lowe did such a nice job of choosing interesting entries from her diary & supplementing them with explanations, descriptions, summaries of events & everyday life, as well as statistics relevant to the impact of the dust bowl & depression. I was fascinated from the first chapter … before things got especially rough … with descriptions of her daily chores, like feeding the stock, rounding up cattle, milking, cooking, baking, cleaning house, washing & ironing clothes, etc. Unbelievably hard work, & on top of that she managed to get educated, take on vsrious jobs outside the home, & later teach school. I will never again complain about having to work too hard!
March 15, 2009
Low's biography is based on the diary she kept between 1927 and 1937 in her home state of North Dakota. A narrative was added and interspersed throughout the book. The diary and the narrative tell two stories: (1) the account of the effect of the drouth, depression, and government programs upon Low's family and neighbors, and (2) the story of Low's own coming to maturity under frustrating family circumstances, hampered by the restrictions society at that time placed upon young women, and in the face of poverty, seeing all they had worked for slip away. Low worked hard on her family's farm. She was able to complete college and went on to be a school teacher. Many men tried to marry Low but she remained single as long as possible. Back then, whenever a women married, she was not allowed to work--she had a husband to provide for her. Low remained single so she could continue to work and support herself and her family. A photo of Low and her horse Roany is provided opposite the title page. A wonderful story of sacrifice, hard work, poverty, perseverance, and life in the Dust Bowl.
January 9, 2013
This is a fascinating memoir of a young girl who survived the dust bowl, the dirty thirties and the great depression and all the hardships that went with these events as she grew up on a farm in North Dakota.
Even though this is a work of non-fiction, the diary only covers a few years of her life, it held my interest throughout the entire book, what makes it even more compelling is that this is a true story and all the hard work, heartbreak, and the ferocious weather, winter temperatures well below zero and summer temperatures above 110 with the constant wind blowing and the effects it has on Ann and her family, friends and neighbors kept me reading well after I should have been asleep.
I so wish I could have met her and talked to her about her book!
Even though this is a work of non-fiction, the diary only covers a few years of her life, it held my interest throughout the entire book, what makes it even more compelling is that this is a true story and all the hard work, heartbreak, and the ferocious weather, winter temperatures well below zero and summer temperatures above 110 with the constant wind blowing and the effects it has on Ann and her family, friends and neighbors kept me reading well after I should have been asleep.
I so wish I could have met her and talked to her about her book!
May 11, 2010
Because it's a diary, it's a bit heavy on daily minutia and farming techniques. The author's family were far better off than many, with no debt or mortgage, and they suffered only a fraction of the worst of it. But the unrevised, honest account is a worthwhile read.
June 27, 2020
3.5 stars. I took this book from my late mother's bookshelf. According to Mom's notes, the author is my second cousin, thrice removed. So, since she was almost an ancestor, and since Dust Bowl history appeals to me anyway, I was intrigued.
The book includes actual diary entries by Ann from 1927, when she was 15, to 1937, when she had graduated from college and begun working as a teacher. To clarify/enhance the story, the author wrote additional descriptive passages about fifty years later, interspersed among the diary entries. At the root of the story is her family's farm in North Dakota, as well as her dad's family's farm closeby, which is owned and run by her grandmother and uncle.
Talk about making history come alive! At the beginning of the book, Ann absolutely loves the wild outdoors of her "Stony Brook country." When not saddled by an unimaginable amount of farm- and housework, she is most at home in the saddle of her horse, riding around admiring sunsets and listening to coyotes sing. It's clear that this land is very much a part of her.
The trouble starts in 1928 -- before the stock market crash -- with a bad hailstorm. The rest of the book describes worsening conditions for livestock grazing and growing crops. (I docked my rating a bit because I got bored with all the details on how grain is harvested etc. What stuck is that, if it's too hot, it's literally possible to work a horse to death!) After the hailstorm, the summers seem to just get hotter, and the dust blows incessantly. She often cites temperatures well above 110 degrees. After the Depression stalls the economy, she describes how the government stepped in to claim mortgages to turn the land into a wildlife refuge, which still exists today. A lot of farmers were cheated. What sets her family apart is that they owned the land -- no mortgage. Also, in spite of the very short money supply, Ann and her brother and sister all completed college educations.
What I loved about Ann is what a feminist she was, even 30 years before there was a national movement. She could manage the farm as well as her brother and father, and when the physical demands were more than one person could handle, the family hired help. She was almost masochistic in her pursuit to help on the farm, physically and financially, and also to help provide her brother's and sister's college expenses. (My mother was also a farm kid, and there was no money for her to go to college when she graduated from high school in 1951.) Once the children graduated from college, it was assumed they would find work and contribute to the farm's expenses from their wages. Ann reveled in the freedom her job gave her, and enjoyed seeing movies and going to dances. I was really amused by all her descriptions of men who were determined to marry her. (There were at least three!) She would have none of it, a primary reason being that if she married she would lose her job. (What?!) So she really planned never to marry.
Overall, the book was depressing. (I would think that any farm family's story during the Depression would be depressing.) Ann described her neighbors being forced one by one to leave their homes, and the incompetence and wastefulness of the Civilian Conservation Corp men who arrived, but she always felt that better times would come. Her optimism and even humor in such dire situations I found amazing.
She ended the book with an epilogue, describing what happened to her and her family after 1937, and what motivated her to publish her diary entries fifty years after they were written. I was saddened by the epilogue, but loved her final words, a Rudyard Kipling quote: "Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget -- lest we forget."
Ann Marie Low was born in 1912, so undoubtedly she is no longer alive. I'm curious how and when she died.
The book includes actual diary entries by Ann from 1927, when she was 15, to 1937, when she had graduated from college and begun working as a teacher. To clarify/enhance the story, the author wrote additional descriptive passages about fifty years later, interspersed among the diary entries. At the root of the story is her family's farm in North Dakota, as well as her dad's family's farm closeby, which is owned and run by her grandmother and uncle.
Talk about making history come alive! At the beginning of the book, Ann absolutely loves the wild outdoors of her "Stony Brook country." When not saddled by an unimaginable amount of farm- and housework, she is most at home in the saddle of her horse, riding around admiring sunsets and listening to coyotes sing. It's clear that this land is very much a part of her.
The trouble starts in 1928 -- before the stock market crash -- with a bad hailstorm. The rest of the book describes worsening conditions for livestock grazing and growing crops. (I docked my rating a bit because I got bored with all the details on how grain is harvested etc. What stuck is that, if it's too hot, it's literally possible to work a horse to death!) After the hailstorm, the summers seem to just get hotter, and the dust blows incessantly. She often cites temperatures well above 110 degrees. After the Depression stalls the economy, she describes how the government stepped in to claim mortgages to turn the land into a wildlife refuge, which still exists today. A lot of farmers were cheated. What sets her family apart is that they owned the land -- no mortgage. Also, in spite of the very short money supply, Ann and her brother and sister all completed college educations.
What I loved about Ann is what a feminist she was, even 30 years before there was a national movement. She could manage the farm as well as her brother and father, and when the physical demands were more than one person could handle, the family hired help. She was almost masochistic in her pursuit to help on the farm, physically and financially, and also to help provide her brother's and sister's college expenses. (My mother was also a farm kid, and there was no money for her to go to college when she graduated from high school in 1951.) Once the children graduated from college, it was assumed they would find work and contribute to the farm's expenses from their wages. Ann reveled in the freedom her job gave her, and enjoyed seeing movies and going to dances. I was really amused by all her descriptions of men who were determined to marry her. (There were at least three!) She would have none of it, a primary reason being that if she married she would lose her job. (What?!) So she really planned never to marry.
Overall, the book was depressing. (I would think that any farm family's story during the Depression would be depressing.) Ann described her neighbors being forced one by one to leave their homes, and the incompetence and wastefulness of the Civilian Conservation Corp men who arrived, but she always felt that better times would come. Her optimism and even humor in such dire situations I found amazing.
She ended the book with an epilogue, describing what happened to her and her family after 1937, and what motivated her to publish her diary entries fifty years after they were written. I was saddened by the epilogue, but loved her final words, a Rudyard Kipling quote: "Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget -- lest we forget."
Ann Marie Low was born in 1912, so undoubtedly she is no longer alive. I'm curious how and when she died.
March 12, 2023
A rich piece of American literature while heartbreaking, yet the resiliency that abounded and the ultimate toll it took on some...
"Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget."
school was held only during the three summer months each year
city people have different priorities than we do
It was hard to make the subject interesting to the pupils or convince them they were living in what would become history.
I won't be silly enough to welcome 1937 with high hopes for better times. However, I can say again, as I said a year ago, we've made it so far.
If I can inspire them to keep on struggling, some of them will be successful.
A married woman has no independence at all. If I should marry, I would lose my job immediately. Anyway, I don't want to get married, and that is that. A married woman loses all independence and any change at a career of her own.
and then the whole Epilogue. phewy.
"Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget."
school was held only during the three summer months each year
city people have different priorities than we do
It was hard to make the subject interesting to the pupils or convince them they were living in what would become history.
I won't be silly enough to welcome 1937 with high hopes for better times. However, I can say again, as I said a year ago, we've made it so far.
If I can inspire them to keep on struggling, some of them will be successful.
A married woman has no independence at all. If I should marry, I would lose my job immediately. Anyway, I don't want to get married, and that is that. A married woman loses all independence and any change at a career of her own.
and then the whole Epilogue. phewy.
June 2, 2018
The synopsis given here is very accurate. Most impressive with this diary is how very very hard she worked all the time. Yet her diary reflects nothing to indicate that she ever expected to do anything less. And the family made sure they provided for each other, so whoever is earning the money (which was so very very scarce), sends the money to help the farm or the sibling or whatever current cause.
This is a brief, very readable book about the 10 desperate years in North Dakota, and happens to be near the area where I have relatives, so I recognized much of it, plus the Medora area we visited on vacation.
This is a brief, very readable book about the 10 desperate years in North Dakota, and happens to be near the area where I have relatives, so I recognized much of it, plus the Medora area we visited on vacation.
August 3, 2019
This is really well written and interesting. North Dakota life on a farm during the depression and dust bowl years. I plan to keep my copy close at hand. Whenever I think I have too much work to do, I will open it to a random page....
The author went back and added such interesting explanations to parts about farm equipment, cream separators, raising poultry, etc. I love it when my mental questions get answered!
The author went back and added such interesting explanations to parts about farm equipment, cream separators, raising poultry, etc. I love it when my mental questions get answered!
February 10, 2020
Actually 4.5 stars. Well written account of living in North Dakota in the 30's. Ann is one hard working woman, with a good sense of humor. A Feminist in every way. It was interesting to read her take on the CCC, which I have always admired. And where the heck was Ethel when all the work was being done? : )
May 16, 2023
I went into this one apprehensive, convinced I would be bored to tears. Surprisingly, I was not. The author does a good job painting pictures with her words and conveying the emotions felt during the Dust Bowl and Depression. I could imagine my grandfather having a life very similar to hers. If anyone is interested in Midwest or Dakota living or history, I would recommend this book.
March 5, 2019
Low was a talented writer with a charming style, and this diary gave a wonderful first-hand account of growing up on a farm in barely-settled North Dakota in the 1930s. Along with her horrible dust-bowl experiences, the book chronicles her simple, satisfying life from childhood to middle age.
August 20, 2022
A personal memoir about life on a North Dakota farm during the Depression. What it lacks in literary style, it compensates with gritty reality.
Ought to be required reading for anyone prone to rhapsodizing about the 'good old days.'
Ought to be required reading for anyone prone to rhapsodizing about the 'good old days.'
February 18, 2020
Everyone who wonders why the Midwest leans conservative Republican needs to read this book.
December 31, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. You become so vested in Anne and were really rooting for her and her family.
January 13, 2023
One of the most memorable books I have ever read. The personal accounts are haunting and have followed me for decades.
For lovers of nature, food, and people, this is a must-read.
For lovers of nature, food, and people, this is a must-read.
October 11, 2023
Really great first hand account of life on the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. Though I wish it was a longer book.
April 22, 2025
Think your life is hard? Read this book.
April 4, 2012
It was really interesting to read a first hand account of the Dust Bowl, and the toll it had on rural communities. This book is Low's journal with bits of extra narrative thrown in to make the story make more sense (occasionally extra context is needed). This was especially interesting for me as I read this during my North Dakota History class at Jamestown College, which is where Low was at school for much of the journal. I really enjoyed reading about how JC was during that time period, and how different it is from now.
September 15, 2015
Edited version of a passionately written teenage diary of 1927-37, the Depression and dust bowl years in North Dakota. She writes of hardship, resourcefulness, and making do while trying to make a life, while being thoroughly immune to the charms of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Epilogue brings the story to the date of publication (1984).
August 28, 2007
Ann Low uses her diaries to recollect her growing up in the dirty 30s - Intersting in her view of the New Deal programs and the negative effect the programs had on her family -
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December 8, 2012excellent
August 24, 2013
Very informative account of farming in North Dakota during the great depression. It was also an interesting view into the roles of young women during this period.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews