The hardships of farm life coupled with the privations of The Great Depression produced a generation of individuals whose toughness and self-sufficiency rivals that of their pioneer predecessors a hundred years before.

Chester C. Gibbens, my father-in-law, embodies much of what I consider to be the best of his generation. The challenges he faced as a youth instilled in him a strength of character that was to serve him well during the financial calamities that beset our nation throughout the1930's and during the World War that followed. This is his story.