Background
Caroline Boa was born on April 7, 1877 in Wisconsin. She grew up on a farm in Iowa.
Caroline Boa was born on April 7, 1877 in Wisconsin. She grew up on a farm in Iowa.
She graduated Mount Holyoke College in 1901.
She taught English and Latin at a high school in Red Oak, Iowa from 1901 to 1903, and then taught in Des Moines until 1907. From 1907 to her death in 1966, she farmed a land claim in the panhandle region of Oklahoma. During their years of farming, her family weathered the droughts, dust storms, and blizzards that befell the region.
Her letters about the events of the Dust Bowl period were published in Practical Farmer and in The Atlantic Monthly.
Her letters detail both the prosperity of the period before the disaster, and the loss of crops, animals and other amenities during the Dust Bowl years. Personal life
They raised one daughter, Eleanor, born in 1909.
Death
She died in 1966. In recent years, her letters have been featured prominently in the Public Broadcasting Service documentary The Dust Bowl.