We all know the story: orphan Dorothy Gale lives with her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry on their farm in Kansas, and her life is briefly interrupted when a tornado comes through. Well, that’s Dorothy’s version of the story, according to Frank L Baum. But what would it look like from another perspective? That is the premise of Gaynor’s book. We meet Emily Kelly before she even meets Henry Gale. We learn where she’s from, and how and why she and Henry end up on a farm in Kansas in the first place. We learn about the impact not only of the economic crash in 1929, but also by the glut of grain that the prairie had produced. First, prices were high, so farmers plowed more land and planted more grain. When prices dropped, they plowed and planted more, in order to try to recoup their investment. But prices dropped too far for that to be possible, and the prairie could not sustain the process.
Gaynor sets most of the book just after the Crash, and during the worst of the Dust Bowl. When Dorothy’s parents die, and Emily has to bring her back to Kansas, Dorothy arrives at just about the worst possible time. But Gaynor describes life on the Kansas prairie, both before and during the “dirty Thirties” with attention to even small details. There are even descriptions of the prairie flowers that Emily sees when she and Henry first arrive to their new home. And Gaynor’s description of life not just on the farm, but relationships among the other famers and their wives add more depth to the story. If you wondered why people stayed when things first started to get bad, this will give you some idea.
Gaynor weaves most of the familiar elements from the well-known movie into the book. The silver shoes? Emily gave them as a gift to Dorothy’s mother before both were married. We learn how Toto got his name, and even why Dorothy is wearing a gingham dress. Along with all of the depictions of farm life, Gaynor has put in most of the elements Dorothy encounters on her “visit to Oz”. Baum’s book came out in 1900, so he could have had no idea what the 1930’s in Kansas would have been like. But the movie, which most people are more familiar with than the book, came out in 1939, when all of this was very fresh in people’s memories. So it makes sense that Gaynor set her story in this era.
If this was your family, how would you research them? If you had family in Kansas, Oklahoma, or northern Texas in the 1920’s or 1930’s, they may have been affected by the economic crash, but probably even more impacted by the ecological disaster that was the Dust Bowl. Check land records, and also court records, as bankruptcies were very common. I don’t think you could trace anyone’s losses from the stock market crash, but seeing a difference in how, and possibly where, your ancestors lived between the 1920 and 1930 census could be revealing. And of course, Dorothy’s adoption should be in the Court records!