Elsinore (Elsa) Wolcott was the eldest daughter in an upper middle class family, in a prosperous small town in the Texas Panhandle, and came of age in the early 1920s – but was deemed a spinster at 25, according to the mores of the time and setting. Due to an illness in her teens, the family viewed tall, slim, blue-eyed and reddish-blonde Elsa as delicate, unattractive and unsuitable for marriage. Her class-conscious parents and sister relegated Elsa to her upstairs bedroom in their comfortable home where she read novel after novel, embroidered and sewed. Other than that, she learned no domestic skills. She was an unloved outcast in her own home. Her life was dull and confining in every way and she keenly felt the lack of love and prospects for any kind of happy future.
Eventually her frustration led her to break free, despite her fearfulness, creating circumstances that propelled her into a very different setting. She became Elsa Martinelli, wife to Rafe, a young Italian-American man, mother of Loreda and Anthony, and daughter-in-law to his immigrant parents, Rose and Tony. Living on their remote farm, she gradually learned self-sufficiency and how to cook, bake, garden and care for the livestock. As immigrants and Catholics, the Martinellis were shunned by Elsa's parents, who had disowned her. Elsa embraced her new life and family.
When the Great Depression hit, the Martinellis, like most Americans, were its victims. Gradually their circumstances declined and when the Dust Bowl hit the Great Plains, the farm's topsoil blew away, and their wheat crop failed. Conditions became dire, with many on the edge of starvation, and other farm families they knew, their homes and farms foreclosed on, joined the tens of thousands of "Okies" heading west to California, where it was rumored that there were jobs for everyone – in what the rumors said was a latter day "land of milk and honey".
Elsa and thirteen-year-old Loreda were constantly at odds. Loreda made it clear that she adored her father, a dreamer, and constantly rebelled against and criticized her mother. She was not the first young girl to challenge her mother, but she was full of anger and frustration, and took them to extremes. As time passed, and the situation on the farm became more dire, the tension between mother and daughter escalated. When Rafe gave in to his own disappointments and deserted the family, each remaining member was heartbroken in their own way.
Eventually circumstances became so desperate that the Martinellis made the decision to abandon the farm and head for California, but only Elsa and the children ultimately made the journey. Her in-laws would not leave their land and home, so the three set off on the 1,000-mile journey...
This work of historical fiction presents the struggles of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl as experienced on America's farms and in its small towns, exemplified by the struggles and conflicts of the Martinellis. The breadlines, apple and pencil sellers, and other well-documented images of the Great Depression in the large cities, which many readers may have seen, are not a part of this book, which has much in common with John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath – though in fairness, the migrant camps, the exploited farmworkers, and other aspects of both novels are based on real events that occurred during that period. In addition, quick research on The Grapes of Wrath brings to light that Steinbeck himself may have taken some of his ideas from the notes of Sanora Babb, a California writer who worked for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), an arm of FDR's New Deal. Babb wrote her own novel, Whose Names Are Unknown, which was accepted for publication but dropped when The Grapes of Wrath came out first. I am planning a read of Babb's book, which was finally published in 2004 by the University of Oklahoma Press, and then I will make my own judgment.
Returning to The Four Winds, it is a powerful saga that commands the reader's attention. Elsa and Loreda are richly drawn characters. The depictions of the stifling Texas environment where Elsa grew up, and the Martinelli family's work to establish and maintain their farm, and then of the California agricultural conditions are almost photographically vivid. The emotional impact resonates throughout, and the beautifully executed plot ends with perfect resolution.
Eventually her frustration led her to break free, despite her fearfulness, creating circumstances that propelled her into a very different setting. She became Elsa Martinelli, wife to Rafe, a young Italian-American man, mother of Loreda and Anthony, and daughter-in-law to his immigrant parents, Rose and Tony. Living on their remote farm, she gradually learned self-sufficiency and how to cook, bake, garden and care for the livestock. As immigrants and Catholics, the Martinellis were shunned by Elsa's parents, who had disowned her. Elsa embraced her new life and family.
When the Great Depression hit, the Martinellis, like most Americans, were its victims. Gradually their circumstances declined and when the Dust Bowl hit the Great Plains, the farm's topsoil blew away, and their wheat crop failed. Conditions became dire, with many on the edge of starvation, and other farm families they knew, their homes and farms foreclosed on, joined the tens of thousands of "Okies" heading west to California, where it was rumored that there were jobs for everyone – in what the rumors said was a latter day "land of milk and honey".
Elsa and thirteen-year-old Loreda were constantly at odds. Loreda made it clear that she adored her father, a dreamer, and constantly rebelled against and criticized her mother. She was not the first young girl to challenge her mother, but she was full of anger and frustration, and took them to extremes. As time passed, and the situation on the farm became more dire, the tension between mother and daughter escalated. When Rafe gave in to his own disappointments and deserted the family, each remaining member was heartbroken in their own way.
Eventually circumstances became so desperate that the Martinellis made the decision to abandon the farm and head for California, but only Elsa and the children ultimately made the journey. Her in-laws would not leave their land and home, so the three set off on the 1,000-mile journey...
This work of historical fiction presents the struggles of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl as experienced on America's farms and in its small towns, exemplified by the struggles and conflicts of the Martinellis. The breadlines, apple and pencil sellers, and other well-documented images of the Great Depression in the large cities, which many readers may have seen, are not a part of this book, which has much in common with John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath – though in fairness, the migrant camps, the exploited farmworkers, and other aspects of both novels are based on real events that occurred during that period. In addition, quick research on The Grapes of Wrath brings to light that Steinbeck himself may have taken some of his ideas from the notes of Sanora Babb, a California writer who worked for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), an arm of FDR's New Deal. Babb wrote her own novel, Whose Names Are Unknown, which was accepted for publication but dropped when The Grapes of Wrath came out first. I am planning a read of Babb's book, which was finally published in 2004 by the University of Oklahoma Press, and then I will make my own judgment.
Returning to The Four Winds, it is a powerful saga that commands the reader's attention. Elsa and Loreda are richly drawn characters. The depictions of the stifling Texas environment where Elsa grew up, and the Martinelli family's work to establish and maintain their farm, and then of the California agricultural conditions are almost photographically vivid. The emotional impact resonates throughout, and the beautifully executed plot ends with perfect resolution.
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