Donnie Kingman

Odyssey of Innocents Donnie Kingman

High hopes and thirty dollars start a young couple forced out of farming, by the dust bowl and the Great Depression, to leave their Texas home. In 1936, with another newly married couple, they search for a better life in California. This story of adventure, hardships and triumphs is told through the eyes of a sixteen year old bride who has never been more than sixty miles from her Texas home. This true story that reads like a novel, tells of being homeless, hungry, of floods and rattlesnakes; living under a tree for six winter months and the pleasure of having a box of oatmeal. Told with laughter and tears, the story is about sacrifice and success from 1936 through the beginning of World War II. Filled with the wonder of seeing new places, meeting other refugees and hearing their stories; of doing migratory farm labor and farming cotton. She misses her family and has many flashbacks of her earlier life in Texas. The theme throughout this book is a young bride dream of a little white house, orange trees and a garden. The dream helps her face many hardships. Will the dream be realized?