The Library of Congress has a fascinating collection of over 600 photographs taken in Pie Town, New Mexico by documentary photographer Russell Lee, mostly black & white but a fair number in color.
Russell Lee is one of a number of photographers hired to work under Roy Stryker in the Farm Security Administration (FSA) during the Depression “to document the plight of the rural poor.” The FSA collection in The Library of Congress Archives archives contain approximately 77,000 images and are well worth a visit or two.
Pie Town in the 1930s was being homesteaded by families from Oklahoma and Texas looking to build a new life.
It was surprising to me to see how primitively people were living in America as recently as the 1940s.
I have wondered what happened to the families photographed by Russell Lee.
I located an answer in the form of an article by Paul Hendrickson and published by Smithsonian magazine in 2005 documenting what he found when he visited Pie Town 65 years after Russell Lee.
When Russell Lee arrived in 1939 Pie Town “boasted a Farm Bureau building, a hardware and feed store, a café and curio shop, a hotel, a baseball team, an elementary school, a taxidermy business.”
They had daily (except Sunday) stagecoach service, “operated by Santa Fe Trail Stages, with a uniformed driver and with the passengers’ luggage roped to the roof of a big sedan or woody station wagon.”
I am in awe of what they were able to accomplish.
Not too many years later the weather changed and the farms and gardens and homesteaders disappeared.
Today the homesteaders of the 1930s are gone and Pie Town is “no more than a wide spot in the road.” But they still love their pie.
[…] here to read about Pie Town and the photographer Russell Lee. No Comments so far Leave a comment […]
I do know to an extent about the Whinery family. The children were, eldest to youngest, Laura, Wanda, Velva, Abrim (“AJ”) and Lawrence, who passed away just four years later. Father/husband Abrim Jackson (“Jack”) and mother/wife Laura Edith (“Edith”) Whinery later had two more children, Miriam and Floyd. I do have more information, but because I would be excerpting it from my report I am doing for school, I will refrain from posting it as to not make my teacher think I just pulled the information directly off the internet (actually, I had to go to Pie Town myself to get some of the information!). I will bookmark this page, though, so that once I have turned in my report I may share my findings with you.
Also, about one of the families shown in the LOC pictures, the Caudills: The wife/mother (I cannot remember her name at the moment) has a book written about her life, called “Pie Town Woman”. Apparently they did not have the happy ending they dreamed of, their fall starting when the husband/father started running around on wife/mother, young daughter Josie stuck in the mix. Just breaks my heart =(
wow! thank you so much!
i would love to read your report. i hope you post it on the internet and come back and give us a link. if you don’t have somewhere to post it, i would be pleased to have you post it here.
I really wish she’d have come back and linked to her report. I would LOVE to read it. I’ve been searching for history on the Whinery family to satisfy my own curiousity but I haven’t been able to find out much.
You and me, sister.
Have you looked at the rest of the photos of the people of Pie Town in the Library of Congress archives? There are many, many more than the few I posted here. It is surprising to me that as recently as the early 1940s people were still homesteading in this country.
Here’s a link to some info about the book referenced in the first comment, “Pie Town Woman.”
MY GREAT-GREAT GRANDMOTHER WAS SARAH JANE WHINERY BORN 23 DEC, 1833 ARK, MARRIED JESSE K. SHIPLEY 18 APR, 1852 in WASHINGTON COUNTY ARK. MY SISTER HAS RESEARCHED WHINERY FAMILY TO THAT POINT, THEN LOST THEM.WE RECENTLY DISCOVERED WHINERYS IN KREBS, McALESTER, AND NORMAN OK BUT HAVE NOT ATTEMPTED TO MAKE CONTACT YET. MY BROTHER RECENTLY FOUND PICS OF WHINERY FAMILY BY RUSSELL. ANY INFO ANYONE CAN PROVIDE THAT MIGHT CONNECT ANY WHINERY DESCENDANTS TO SARAH JANE WHINERY SHIPLEY WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.
I just ran across some photos on the Drudgereport related to depression pictures in color. I googled the family name and found this site. Thank you for sharing the pictures and information on the family. It’s very interesting to see what people went through living in that time of our history.
I’m glad you found my post, and I hope you click through to the Library of Congress archives because there are many, many more Pie Town photos there as well as tens of thousands of other interesting, historic photos. Lucky you to have the nation keeping your family history alive and available!
Damn it Alexandra, you never came back and gave us more information. I wanted so badly to find out if that little family made it ok.
The family did make it okay. They moved on from Pie Town sometime in the late 40’s and finally settled in Grand Junction, CO.
Thanks for coming back with the report. Do you know why they wound up in Colorado?
It would be wonderful to know how the family made out. They looked like such hard workers; the dad reminded me of Henry Fonda in “The Grapes of Wrath”.
Just a little more info on this family, with a nice photo. Last one in the file:
http://pavel-kosenko.livejournal.com/303194.html?thread=22669914
Yeah, all those pictures, including the one from Pie Town, are from the Library of Congress archives. There’s some amazing stuff over there.
Jack Whinery died in 1994 at the age of 87 – What a fine person he must have been to leave a legacy of hard work and commitment,
Pie Town is an interesting place! Best raisin/oatmeal pie I ever did feast upon. The locals are friendly and never forget a visitor. The quilting is almost as fine as Mt. Home Ark., too.
Hello Everyone!
Jack Whinery was my Great-Grandfather. He was an incredible man. Hard working with an incredibly soft heart. He was a deeply religious man who just before he died, wrote a book about Bible prophecy. I have many happy memories of the time spent with my great-grandparents as a young girl. Unfortunately, I have very limited knowledge of any of the family before him. He was the glue that held our family together. My Great-Grandmother (Edith) passed away after him. My Grandma, Velva passed away in 2007.
I wish I had more information. I’ve been trying to fill in those branches of my family tree for years. If anyone comes across more info, please feel free to contact me directly. quietempest@comcast.net.
Thank you!
I don’t know if this will work, but here is a picture of him taken around 1993. He is on the far left and Edith is next to him holding my cousin.
I came across the family picture in http://pavel-kosenko.livejournal.com/303194.html?thread=22669914. A fine family! Pioneer, populate, prosperous!!! Great American story!