Virginia Frantz grew up during the Great Depression only a few miles from where Max’s family lived from the early fifties on. Beaver County, OK was hit hard by the depression as was much of the country, but Virginia remembers it vividly and has written about it from time to time. Recently Ken Burns interviewed and filmed Virginia for the …
A Real Pioneer – Part 1
A few months ago, one of my distant cousins suggested my sisters and I nominate our dad for the honor of Parade Marshal for Pioneer Days in his hometown in Guymon, OK. The criteria included being a descendent of “No Man’s Land” homesteaders in the Panhandle, being a current resident, and had to have lived in one of the three …
>Stringing Together a Novel
>For some people, novels arrive fully formed in their brains, via a dream or a story the author has been nursing for years. Broken Wings was more like a pebble here, a pearl there, a flicker of an idea that wasn’t quite flesh and bones. It actually had its origins in the stories my mother-in-law and dad told me about …
>Duststorms Then and Now
>This has been a horrible year for folks out in western Oklahoma and much of west Texas. Rainfall is measure in one-hundredths of an inch and every precious drop is welcomed. The drought and high winds have birthed many dust-filled days and wildfires. Thousands (maybe millions) of acres of land have burned along with many homes. More and more people …