During Wind and Rain: The Jones Family Farm in the Arkansas Delta 1848-2006

by Margaret Jones Bolsterli

n telling the story of five generations of her family and its farm in the Arkansas Delta, Margaret Jones Bolsterli brings together her own research, historical perspective, and family lore as it reaches her from the days of her great-grandfather down to her nephew. The result is a family saga that is at once universal and personal, historical and timeless. During Wind and Rain moves from the land’s acquisition in 1848 through the Civil War and Reconstruction, the 1927 Flood, the Great Depression, and the drought of 1930 to the modern considerations of mechanization, fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. The transformation of dense swamp and forest to today’s commercial agriculture is the story of two hundred acres worked by people sowing their fate with sweat, ingenuity, and luck. From the hoes of Bolsterli’s great-grandfather Uriah’s time to her nephew Casey’s machinery capable of cultivating an acre in five minutes, During Wind and Rain poignantly portrays five generations of farmers motivated by dreams of “a crop so good that the memory of it can warm the drafty floors of adversity for the rest of one's life.”

122 pages, Paperback

First published March 22, 2008

Reviews

[Guy Choate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book in a quest to discover how a writer could turn a lot of documented information about a piece of land into a narrative about the people who worked that land. It seems Bolsteri had the same hurdle that couldn't be overcome. Generations of characters, but none of them were given anything close to a dynamic life on the page, and I never felt an attachment to the land the book was based on. However, if you're looking for the price of cotton at any point during the last 150 years, or have elementary questions about historical farming methods, this could be a good reference.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

An honest account of a large family farm in the Arkansas Delta from 1848 to 2006. Enjoyable with some interesting insights on cotton farming in the delta.