From  DARING TO LOOK: Photographs and Reports from the Field by Dorothea Lange, by Anne Whiston Spirn (University of Chicago Press, 2008).

DATE:  October 12, 1939

PLACE: Willow Creek area, Malheur County, Oregon

***SUBJECT: The Soper Family, FSA borrower

The Soper family came from northeast Wyoming three years ago where they were dry farming. They have ten children, one a baby and another 17 years old. They have cleared 120 acres of sage brush land “all but one piece we still have to do back of the hill.” Came to Malheur County December 12, 1936, when the ground was covered with snow. Didn’t see the ground until the next April. Built a tarpaper shack. Lost one child of pneumonia that first winter. Built a new house after two years. Land cost $5.00 an acre, “but we cleared it out of the rough.”

They have hogs, small grain, and a few cows, an orchard started, bees, and chickens. They lost three cows last year with Bang’s disease [a highly contagious disease that may cause cows to abort and infects humans]. Haul firewood 50 miles. “Boys went hunting and brought back a load of wood and one buck. Put some of the meat down but didn’t have enough cans.” Tomatoes were blighted. Had plenty to eat but none to can. Canned lots of plums. One boy is hauling onions to market for a local grower, one boy is janitor at school. Have a well. Next year hope to plant potatoes or beets for a cash crop.

Mr. Soper is member of a feed-grinding cooperative (FSA).

Three oldest boys, 17, 16, and 14, have been unable to continue to school because they had to help their parents to establish this farm. One is interested in electrical engineering.

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