The Bare Pantry Hymn

Clara Montrose stood in her kitchen on a January morning in 1934, staring at three nearly empty shelves. The drought had taken the wheat. The blight had taken the garden. Her husband Earl had lost his job at the grain elevator when it shut down. The milk cow had gone dry two weeks ago. She opened every cupboard door — a half bag of flour, a tin of lard, a jar of pickled beets her mother had sent from Topeka.…