Just Like Gypsies Book

S.D. and Maude Smith's hopes to own a farm in Arkansas had proven futile. They had tried everything, but the soil on their claim was too poor, spring floods and summer droughts made it impossible to raise a crop, and there was no work available in the area. They had no money to make a move and no way to earn any. Vet repaired his old farm wagon, put bent saplings over it, covered them with a used, leaky canvas, loaded their meager possessions and hitched up his team of horses. Then, he and the six members of his family started on an 800-mile trek to Indiana, where he could make a living for them. They left the homestead in the spring of 1924 and stopped occasionally to work when necessary. They arrived in Marion, Indiana, October 9, 1924, where they became known as "The Covered Wagon Family." "Depression Survivors," part two, relates their struggle to overcome "grinding poverty" on rented farms through the Depression years, raise eight children-six through high school-and into useful careers. Vet and Maude retired to a forty-acre farm in 1951, and Vet rented out his fields.