The Farm Crisis of the 1980’s affected many farmers across the country, including my mother and her family. Interest prices had escalated, and crop prices had fallen, so my grandparents could no longer afford the loan payments on their land. Therefore, my mom was twelve years old, living in Eastern Kansas, when her parents declared bankruptcy and their house was foreclosed on by the bank. In search of work, the family moved across the state to Scott City, where both my grandfather and grandmother became teachers. Partly because of the financial stress they had endured, coupled with the strain of moving away from friends and family, my grandparents’ marriage fell apart, and they divorced within a year. On her single salary, my grandmother then
