Residency Statement

It appears that for some reason Grandma & Grandpa (The Dicks) had a need to prove that they resided in California and had for some time.  By the way, the notary was a close relative.  All Mennonites are related.  The interesting thing for me is the arrival date in California from Kansas. . . November, 1934, the almost exact middle of the depression.  I understand then came across during the dust bowl days.  Here's what I think I know; they lived on a little ten acre farm with everything you would think of as a Kansas Farm.  But, there was no work, the farm could not produce money or enough food, so they had to go to California like all the rest.  I think my Grandmother's brother bought the ten acres for a few thousand dollars which gave the family a little stake.  We all know what happened when folks like these arrived in California and it was no different for this family.  The came across in a Chevrolet and a trailer filled with their entire worldly possessions.  They landed in Reedley, California, a mecca for Mennonite Brethren.  My understanding is that my Grandfather, John B. Dick was quite the speaker/evangelist in the old fire and brimstone mode. . . . in German.  This earned him a few bucks in Kansas, but there just was not the call for German Evangelists in California, so Grandpa took to the fields.  He became a field-worker.  What he did not do was migrate.  Somehow he was able to scrape enough living together to stay put in Reedley.  Another topic for a wonderful book.  How about it Larry?