Depressions - United States - 1929-1933 -- fiction

During the Great Depression, Eliza Rose Wyatt, a young widow with three small children, tries to keep her family orchard running alone. When Gabriel Harper, a drifter, arrives in town, he seems like just the help that Eliza has been looking for. Also available on video.

"While 'communing with spirits,' Schell sees an image of a young girl in a pane of glass, silently entreating the con man for help. Though well aware that his otherworldly 'powers' are a sham, Schell inexplicably offers his services to help find the lost child -- drawing Diego along with him into a tangled maze of deadly secrets and terrible experimentation."

During the Great Depression, Davey learns that a neighbor's property is about to be auctioned, and he rallies his friends, neighbors, and family to help save Strawberry Farm.

"Readers will laugh and cry as they follow the story of Josh Jones, an orphan growing up during the Great Depression. Eighteen-year-old Auntie Lou is the only mother Josh has ever known. When his grandfather and uncle start talking about finding a husband for his aunt, he knows something has to be done! As he grows to manhood through disappointment and tragedy, triumph and joy, Josh learns to trust God no matter what life brings."
Seasons of the Heart series, Book 3.

Times are hard in 1932, and Virginia Eide, 13, must give up her room when her uncle's family moves into her home. Through the long summer of poverty, danger, and fear, young Virginia discovers that the happiness she hopes for herself won't be found in the fulfillment of her adolescent dreams, but in that place she had never before considered--the role of serving others.

"Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is the now-classic novel of two women in the 1980s; of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women - of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth - who back in the '30s ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present - for Evelyn and for us - will never be quite the same again...."
(Audiobook summary)

This magical, memorable novel explores the ties that unite women through good times and bad. It is the 1930s, and hard times have hit Harleyville, Kansas, where crops are burning up and there's not a job to be found. For one young farm wife, the highlight of each week is the gathering of the Persian Pickle Club, a group of locals dedicated to improving their minds, exchanging gossip, and putting their well-honed quilting skills to good use.