My mother's folks immigrated to the US in 1851 from County Clair, Ireland during or just post potato famine. My Great Grand Father became a wealthy farmer in Iowa, too bad he had a bunch of worthless kids, that is to say, the children, (my Grand parent) squandered away the acreage, and wealth after my Great Grandfather's passing. My mother's family emigrated to Henderson, Nevada in the 1930s looking for work in the defense department factories that had sprung up in the area.
My father's family were share croppers in Arkansas who couldn't make a living so they moved to Oklahoma and were share croppers on 600 acres in Pierce, OK in the late 1800s. And of course, history knows what happened to Oklahoma during the dust bowl and subsequent economic depression of 1929 through the 1930s. In 1932 my family packed up Grapes of Wrath style and emigrated West. They began the trip with 23, a Model T truck and two Model A cars with all of their belongings strapped to the hood, fenders,and roof. As the story goes they ran out of money in Needles, CA. They made their way to Las Vegas to seek work on the dam (Boulder Dam), but you needed to know how to read and write and none of my father's family qualified at the time.
I am the first generation off the farm on both my mothers and fathers family.
