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These came to us by e-mail since the page went up in March. Everyone here said it was all right to share their letter. I've left off last names and towns, and I've trimmed some of them for length, but the words are theirs. My answers, when I had something to add, are in italics. — Mary

Dear Mary and Russell, my granddaughter showed me your page on the computer at the library. We lost our farm in 1986. I want you and anybody reading this to know there is a life after, if it comes to that. My husband drove truck for eleven years after and he said once it was the first time in his life he slept through the night. We still have the garden and a few chickens. Some days I miss the place so much I can hardly stand it, and some days I don't think of it at all. I hope it doesn't come to that for you. God bless you both.
— Arlene, North Dakota

Arlene, I read your letter to Russell at the supper table and neither one of us said anything for a while. Thank you. — M.

We're in the Red River Valley on the Minnesota side and the scab got us in '93 and '94 just like you. We've moved a lot of our ground to soybeans since, which my father-in-law says is a sin, but the beans don't get scab. My husband read Russell's part twice and then went out to the shop. Later he came in and said, "That's me in the winter of '94." That's the most he's said about it in five years. So thank you.
— Robbin, Minnesota

Winter wheat up on the Hi-Line. You've got too much water and some years we've got none, and the price is the same lousy price either way. I'm 55 and I've never been to a counselor and I'm not sure I'm going to start, but I wanted to say I read the part about it not being weak and I'm thinking it over. That's further than I've been.
— Melvin, Montana

Melvin, thinking it over is how Russell started too. Write anytime. — M.

Mary, I printed your list of things to watch for and left it on the kitchen table. I didn't say anything. My husband read it with his breakfast and he didn't say anything either. Three days later he asked me to make him an appointment with Doc. I don't know what's going to come of it but it's more than we had. I'll let you know.
— Frances, South Dakota

Frances wrote again in July to say they've been to the doctor twice and to their pastor once, and that her husband went fishing with his brother for the first time in three years. — M.

I'm 61 and farm wheat in central Kansas. In 1985 I was right where Russell was. Nobody had a word for it then except maybe "down," and you didn't say it out loud. My wife got me through. Tell Russell an old man in Kansas says thank you for writing it down. It would have helped me to read it back then.
— Leroy, Kansas

We're on the other side of the lake from you. The water came over our road in '97 and they've raised it once since and it's close again. My wife says we live on an island with a mailbox. Anyway I just wanted to say it's good to know somebody else is looking out the window at the same water. See you at the elevator sometime maybe.
— Gilbert, North Dakota

Gilbert, Russell says the coffee is on him. — M.

The part about driving to town every morning and resenting it and then feeling guilty for resenting it. That's me exactly. I'm a nurse's aide at the hospital, mostly for the insurance, same as you. Nobody tells you that being the one with the town job is its own kind of lonely. I cried a little at my desk on my break. In a good way. Thank you.
— Joyce, Minnesota

My son farms the home place now and he's 41 and he hasn't been himself since last fall. I'm 66 and I don't know how to talk to him about it, because his father never talked about anything either. I sent him the address of your page in a letter. I hope he reads it. If he does, Terry, your mother loves you and there's no shame in it.
— Vera, North Dakota

Vera, I hope he reads it too. — M.

If you'd like to add your letter, write to us at [email protected] and tell me if it's all right to put it here. If you're in a bad way tonight, please don't wait on my answer: call your doctor or the farm crisis hotline, and if it's an emergency, call 911.

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Letters page last updated September 19, 1999.