Small Group Meeting

This picture was taken by D.E. Hutchinson, SCS (Soil Conservation Service) Area  Conservationist at the Ted Luebbe hone near Staplehurst, NE on December 6, 1954. I am the fellow standing behind the farmers on the right side of the picture and Lew Kehne, SCS Engineer, is standing behind on the left side. The farmers (L-R) are Ted Luebbe, Raphael Dobesh, Bill Luebbe, Frankie Slavik, Lloyd Luebbe. We were discussing Watershed Planning and had aerial photographs of their adjoining farms laid out on the table. These were the type of meetings that were encouraged by SCS in the early days of the Watershed Program where eventually thousands of earthen dams were built across the country to control erosion and prevent flooding. Our youngest son Jon was born on November 22, 1954. Elaine, Jon and the other kids had just gotten back home from spending time at her folks,  a couple days before I went out to the meeting. Jon, who works with the NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service & name change from SCS) was aware of this picture and asked about it today. After several years in the Seward County Field Office, I went on to work in Lincoln on Watershed Planning and Construction. Then we moved back to the SCS National Headquarters Office in USDA. During our early years in Virginia, we visited the Arlington County Library quite frequently. On one occasion Elaine took the kids there while I was on a field trip. She happened to just pull a little book off the shelf  and thumbing through it, came across this picture. She was able to obtain a copy of the book, and it has been in our home library ever since. It is titled “Dust Bowl” by Patricia Lauber, published 1958 by Coward-McCann, Inc. It has 96 pages with Library of Congress Coding Card number 58-7006. Jon,  that should give you the information you were looking for.