Too Poor To Move
Too Poor To Move
Jim Sargent’s book, Too Poor to Move, But Always Rich, offers the reader a chance to experience the unfolding of the twentieth century as lived by his parents, the Norwegian and the Honyocker. This devoted couple struggled through decades of phenomenal change on a dry-land Montana ranch. Raising sheep, farming with horse-drawn machinery, facing sickness and death, dealing with cantankerous animals, braving blizzards, coping with dust and drought, then bogging down in gumbo, they endured all of the pathos and rejoiced in the profound satisfactions that rewarded their steadfast efforts to survive. During the terrible drought and depression of the 1930s, many western ranch families abandoned the land, but for those who stuck it out, exceptional inner strength emerged. Though they sacrificed deeply, and worked harder than anyone today can imagine, they also found ways to laugh, to have fun, to raise happy, healthy children, and to live their values of honesty, fairness, trust, and thrift. Sargent, an avid history buff, has inherited his parents’ love of the land, their wit and wisdom, and their love of telling a good story.