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click image for full size click image for full size Other articles in Part 3 Working poor dominate poverty rolls Graphs: poverty rate trends; poverty and education; geographic area Suburbs thrive; cities, rural area fall behind Women and children most likely to be poor Graphs: poverty rate by race, ethnicity; age; household Oregon's children and poverty Elders face poverty as they grow older Disability and chronic poverty Poverty and minorities

Most poor people don't stay that way story by Theresa Novak Many know her face. Few know her story. Yet more than 60 years after Florence Thompson's care-worn face made her a symbol of the Great Depression, her story teaches a valuable lesson: The poor usually do not stay poor. They do not remain in despair. In 1936, Florence Thompson was a refugee in her own country, according to the 1984 book Dust Bowl Descent by Bill Ganzel. Ganzel wrote: "Displaced from her home in Oklahoma in the early 1930s, Florence and her family were travelling from one small California farming town to another, looking for work. From Modesto to Salinas to Bakersfield to Fireball, California- or wherever the next harvest was ready- they loaded their tent into their Model T Ford and moved on." Dorothea Lange of the Farm Security Administration photographed Florence as part of a government project to document migrant work conditions. Florence's condition was desperate. Widowed and the mother of five by the age of 32, she had hoped to find work in the pea fields outside Nipomo. But a late frost had destroyed the crop, and worse, the family truck had blown-out tires, so the family couldn't move on. Her sons were in town fixing the flats. Florence was comforting her three daughters. At the time, she was pregnant with her sixth child. When her photograph appeared in the local newspaper, the public poured out compassion to the farm workers, bringing food and offers of work. But Florence never saw that help. She and her family had found a way to move on the following day. And they kept moving. Eventually, they found their way out of poverty the way most people do. Florence married again. Her husband found decent work, and the couple added four more children to the family. Florence and most of her 10 children settled around Modesto, California, not too far from that pea field. When they were grown, Florence's children bought her a suburban tract house. She was pictured there in 1979, sitting in a lawn chair with the three daughters from "the picture" standing around her. She was wearing the ghost of a smile and her face had lost that haunted look. Although her life became financially secure, Florence never forgot how it felt to be dangerously poor. She didn't feel comfortable in a regular house. She moved back into a mobile home. She wanted to have wheels under her, in case life took another bad turn. It never did. Florence Thompson died peacefully in 1982 at the age of 77, surrounded by her family. Her photograph, which now appears on a U.S. stamp, continues to be the most-requested in the Congressional archives.   Article 5 of 10 in Part 3   back to top

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