Doodlebug Days: An American Family's Ups and Downs as Middle-Class Migrants in the California of the 1930s

Our 1935 black Oldsmobile and heavily-loaded trailer drew hostile looks as we drove into Bakersfield and stopped at a shady park to check the tires. When Mother, Daddy, we two girls and our young brother, Skippy, got out, two work-hardened men in ranch straw hats and short-sleeved cotton shirts stood staring suspiciously at our California license plates.

"Had those plates on long?" the shorter man challenged Daddy.

"Guess you'd say so," Daddy answered pleasantly.

Mother's hands were settlin...