Home » Reading & Literature » Historical Fiction » Hidden Places: A Farm Family During the Great Depression

Hidden Places: A Farm Family During the Great Depression

© Lynda Ochsner

Hidden Places: Great Depression Family Life

Hidden Places, a historical fiction novel by Lynn Austin, vividly relates the struggles and hidden secrets of a farm family in the early 1930s. Eliza Wyatt, recently widowed with three young children, finds herself in charge of the Wyatt family orchard. Though embittered against God, she has followed the advice of her late husband's Aunt "Batty" to pray for an angel-and it seems God has brought such a messenger, someone to help with the difficult work. Yet the stranger, Gabriel Harper, seems to be less than forthright about himself and his past.

Everyone in the Deer Springs community is struggling, with land and farming equipment selling for pennies. Hobos ride the railroads and trespass on people's land, often begging for a meal in exchange for work. The local bank is closing, requiring all mortgages to be paid in full, including a loan on the Wyatt Orchard. To make matters worse, Eliza soon learns that she and her children do not even have legal ownership of the farm. Her husband Sam died before his father, and Frank Wyatt's will has left everything to his oldest son, Matthew. However, no one has seen Matthew in over ten years, since the Great War.

Eliza takes in the stranger, Gabe, who shows up at her doorstep, then nurses him through a bad "lockjaw" infection. Meanwhile, neighboring Aunt Batty (Betty, who sometimes seems crazy, or "batty") must move into the farmhouse when her roof collapses under the weight of snow, and she brings her half-blind ugly dog and fat cats with her, to add to the hectic madhouse. Aunt Batty's high-spirited joy uplifts the others, for added comic relief, though Eliza amusingly wonders if her children will become as crazy as Aunt Batty.

Eliza is determined to hold onto the orchard, for her children's sake. But that means keeping the farm going, while coming up with $500 and solving the mystery of Matthew Wyatt's whereabouts. Eliza soon discovers the family's dark secrets, while struggling inside with her own secret past, her own lies.

Through first person narratives, alternating between Eliza and Aunt Batty, comes an enriching story with strong characters and plot twists. Though many of the events takes place in the characters' past, in the 1890s and early 1900s, the issues are controversial, serious ones even by today's standards: children conceived out of wedlock; child abuse; attempted murder/suicide; even apparent identity theft. A family situation pulled straight from the Biblical story of Joseph and his brothers yields a similarly tragic result. Several characters deal with anger towards their fathers, yet can now hope for reconciliation.

The copyright of the article Hidden Places: A Farm Family During the Great Depression in Historical Fiction is owned by . Permission to republish Hidden Places: A Farm Family During the Great Depression in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.