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    October 11 1939   Mrs. Hull   Dead Ox Flat, Oregon

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    by Margo Mensing

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    The M. M. Hull Family originally from Oklahoma.

    Haven’t enough income from eggs and butter fat

    to take care of their living expenses. 

    House built for a chicken house.

      Plan to build a better house after farm is in production.

    FSA Office Report: Document Submitted by Dorothea Lange

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    The way you handled the light   It files

    through the dugout window   falls on Mrs Hull 

    her owl glasses   her immaculate tiny print apron

    the spindle-back chair   You make me care for Mrs Hull

     

    I imagine she dressed for this occasion   This chance 

    to sit for Dorothea Lange   No   she didn’t have any idea

    who you were   She wanted to be photographed

    the way she looked   all put together

     

    Still it is not Mrs Hull   the way she’s dressed

    or the cramped tidy dugout   Rather it is the date  

    October 11   Your date   your month   twenty-six years away   

    A day you sail toward oblivious  

     

    The living can always close  

    the dead’s right parenthesis

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