“Sierra, lunch!” Grandma Betsey called from downstairs.
Sierra snapped the book she had been reading shut. She had skipped breakfast that day, and her stomach had been growling for the past two hours! Excited to see what she would soon behold on the kitchen table, Sierra rushed down the attic stairs and then the staircase leading to the main floor.
However, she was greeted by what she viewed as an “unpleasant surprise.” Sitting right in front of her was a bowl of reddish mush. A feeling of annoyance made Sierra’s appetite vanish. Grumbling, she slumped into a kitchen chair.
“Grandma, why bean stew?” Sierra whined.
Grandma Betsey turned around and frowned.
“What’s wrong with bean stew, honey?” she questioned.
Sierra was now more than slightly irritated.
“Everything! Everyone knows bean stew is nothing more than a bland mush. I wouldn’t eat this, even if I was starving!” she complained.
Grandma Betsey stared at Sierra in disappointment.
“I hope that you don’t mean what you just said,” was all that Grandma uttered before turning her back to the stove.
Knowing that arguing further was pointless, Sierra abruptly left the table, and raced up the stairs, back to the attic. Wasting no time, she plopped onto her bed and opened the journal…
An icy blob of rain rudely fell onto Sierra’s forehead, awakening her from her trance. Annoyed, she realized that it was lightly drizzling outside and that the air was frigid—a horrible combination considering that she was wearing a shirt and cotton shorts.
The rain began to pour down aggressively, and Sierra knew that she rapidly had to find shelter somehow. Her answer quickly became apparent to her, as up in front of her, she spotted a radiant strip of land, possibly some sort of camp. Eager to escape from the downpour, Sierra sprinted over to the camp, nearly slipping in patches of mud three times.
When she reached the camp, Sierra noticed that it wasn’t just any ordinary camp. There were numerous men, women, and kids, all dressed in worn clothing, and most were sitting by a fire pit. Suddenly, Sierra felt awkward. Slowly, she approached a small group sitting by a fire.
“Um, hello?” she tried, hesitantly.
Many faces looked in her direction, but it was a young mom who smiled at her and said,
“Hello there! Care for a bowl of food?”
Then she added,
“You are soaked! Come by the fire, you need to get dry quickly!”
Sierra realized her stomach was indeed growling, and she eagerly accepted the young woman’s invitation. As she waited for her food, the woman and other people around the fire introduced themselves. Sierra learned that she was in Hooverville located in St. Louis, Missouri.
Over the next several minutes, Sierra listened to stories of the past lives of numerous camp inhabitants. One woman had been a jazz singer during the Roaring Twenties, while another man had practiced law in New York City. Unfortunately, when the stock market crashed in 1929, each person had lost pieces of their old lives—their jobs, their houses, or even their friends. Despite the fact that each resident of Hooverville had come from drastically different social backgrounds, there was not much difference between one camper and the next due to personal losses resulting from the Depression.
Sierra was listening so intently to each person’s story that she didn’t feel the warm bowl of food that had been placed in her hands. Startled, Sierra directed her attention to the contents of the bowl. With horror, she realized that she was holding a bowl of bean stew. She nearly grimaced, disgusted at the sight of such a meal. But, before she could do so, she heard the young woman, Laura, say,
“You happened to arrive on a lucky day, Sierra. Yesterday, we received a surprise donation of canned beans from the local soup kitchen in downtown St. Louis for the stew we made tonight.”
Laura then added,
“I’m happy that you were able to join us for this special New Year’s Eve meal. Enjoy, sweetie.”
After hearing this, Sierra felt deeply ashamed. Bean stew was a treat for the people of Hooverville, and just a few hours earlier, she had been complaining about having to eat it one time in the entire week for lunch.
Sierra placed a spoonful of stew in her mouth and was pleasantly surprised at the savory and delightful flavor it possessed. She enjoyed her bowl so much that she even had seconds!
The rest of the night was filled with dancing, games, and story-telling, all of which Sierra greatly enjoyed. Abruptly, however, as one of the men narrated the events of his life as a traveling artist years before, someone yelped.
“The clock has rung midnight, it is the new year!” a man proclaimed.
All of the residents let out a collective cheer, and as people began conversing once again, Sierra realized just how many hours she had spent in the Hooverville.
She quickly excused herself to the outhouse and quietly slipped away before anyone could question her disappearance. The moment she closed the door of the outhouse behind her, as predicted, everything went dark.
When Sierra opened her eyes, she was lying on her bed in her bedroom at Grandma Betsey’s house, enshrouded in midnight. As Sierra reflected on the events of her trip to the Hooverville, she knew that she owed an apology to someone.
Sierra tiptoed down the creaky steps of the staircase. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she suddenly felt a feeling of distress. What if Grandma Betsey was still upset with her?
However, Sierra had no time to dissect her anxious feelings, as a warm hand touched her shoulder. Sierra knew to whom the hand belonged to, and she was rattling off an apology for the prior events of the afternoon when, suddenly, Grandma Betsey pulled her into a hug. It was then that Sierra knew that the tension between the two had dissolved, and once they pulled apart, Sierra offered the first words that came to her mind.
“Could I possibly try a bowl of that bean stew you cooked earlier today?”