"One day, I fell out of the [hay] loft and was seriously hurt. For a tenant farmer, such accidents are matters of life and death. When you can't get the fields plowed, there is no harvest to pay for the next year's lease. If you lose your lease, you lose it in the Fall, and your family is homeless and without food over the long, cold, northern Winter. It's a cruel system!

"When the word spread about my accident, every farmer from miles around pitched in to help.

"Leaving their own farms untended, they showed up to do MY Spring plowing! That was a real threat to their own farms. If you miss the good days, and the rain comes, you can miss out on the whole Spring planting season. The Great Depression makes that threat a lot greater! Money is in tight supply everywhere. There is no room for a single lost growing season. There is no money to replace a year's worth of wet and rotting seed.

"Their gift was such a surprise to me. I didn't even know what was happening and had no idea they were there. I was so moved when I learned about it, I shed tears. This is the photo they had made for me so that I would know my family would be all right while I took time to heal.

"I will never forget any of those families who risked losing their own security so that my fields would produce and my family would be taken care of.

"I hope mankind never loses its compassion. May the good Lord help me always to take special care of mine and pass that wonderful gift along to my children. If my children have learned this lesson from me, I will consider myself a successful parent."