Six Sentence Story: Migration

Photo: An old black-and-white photo showing a man and boy in overalls, a woman holding a toddler, a girl who appears to be in her teens, and two little girls. 

Denise hosts the Six Sentence Story blog hop each week. This week the prompt word is migration. I cannot claim credit for the following story; it is taken from a transcript of a video of my grandma telling about her move as a young girl from Arkansas to California in the fall of 1929.

I think it was around the first of November when we started, and we had a Model T Ford touring car, so we put as many of the possessions that we had in the car and on top of the car and behind the car and on the running boards of the car. Newman was driving, and Dad was in the front seat, so Mom and Bernice and Lucas and Quince and I were in the backseat, along with boxes of stuff to eat and clothing to keep us warm and blankets to keep us warm, because there was no heat in the car. We left our mountain home where we lived on Grandpa's farm, Grandpa Kimes' farm, and started out. Well, we had to go up a high hill right from the house to get to the main road, and the car was so loaded down, it wouldn't make the hill, so all of us had to get out, except Newman, and walk up the hill to the main road. I think we pushed a bit on the back of the car, too, to keep it going and we got to the main road and we all got back in, and got situated again, covered up again, and started out. . . .

We were on what was called the Route 66, going across the continent to California and we came into the Imperial Valley and there we were up a high hill again, so we stopped and looked out over the panorama and we all decided it would be better to go back to Arkansas; we didn't like what we saw. . .but we went on.