OUR FAR EAST FAMILIES
Dust was not uncommon in the semiarid regions of Colorado when the prairie winds blew, so it was no surprise when a few “dusters”—large dust clouds—appeared in 1931. In 1932 the dusters returned with greater intensity. By 1933 the frequency and intensity of dust storms endangered the health of livestock and people alike. The destructive storms earned the decade the moniker the “dirty thirties.” The storms destroyed millions of farmland acres and induced mental and physical anguish among residents. Towns had to turn on their streetlights during the day and the ubiquitous dust forced people to put wet sheets over doors and windows. Colorado’s farmers ate meals under tablecloths and wore goggles and masks of wet towels when they dared venture outdoors. Cases of dust pneumonia reached epidemic proportions in animals and humans.
Although Baca County experienced the brunt of the Dust Bowl, dust storms occurred as far north as Burlington in Kit Carson County and Julesburg in Sedgwick County. Las Animas and Prowers counties were especially hard hit. Dust covered roads and made them impassable, suffocated livestock, destroyed crops, and laid ruin to the livelihoods of thousands of eastern Coloradans.
“It’s horrible, just horrible, the ways drought can affect the human mind,” says Jimmy Brown, a third-generation farmer in Eads who has seen his wheat and grain sorghum crops wither, just like those of his neighbors. “I doubt there’s a person here whose mental health hasn’t been affected by it.”
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The Eastern Plains have had dry spells. Some old-timers remember Dust Bowl conditions in the 1930s. Their children weathered extreme drought in the mid-1950s, and their children’s children endured acute dryness in 2002 and 2012. Depression can settle in an area and becomes difficult to stop. Expectation for more drought is always on people’s minds. The local conversations center around making it through another year and the possibility of moving elsewhere.
​Growers speak of a rootedness – financial, family, and spiritual – needed to withstand the dry years, let alone several of them. They do not speak of mental health factors. Especially in a county where data show residents’ discomfort talking about personal problems is 11% higher than the statewide average, they cannot know what challenges were faced by the local father whose 16-year-old son discovered his body after his recent suicide. Or by the four men with ties to Kiowa County who ended their lives several years ago – three of them within two weeks of each other, and two of them farmers. The youth on the eastern plains are 2 times more likely to commit suicide than youth elsewhere. Colorado for years has had one of the highest youth suicide rates in the nation; suicide is the leading cause of death in this state for people age 10-24.
That string of suicides prompted the local mental health services provider to offer classes on recognizing signs of mental health crisis. It held special training for loan officers, machinery dealers, auctioneers and bankruptcy clerks to spot signs of potential suicidality in their clients and urge them to seek professional help.
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Despite these provisions, rural Colorado faces a shortage of mental health professionals, with a projected deficit of over 4,400 workers by 2026. Rural areas have, on average, one mental health provider for every 321 residents, compared to one for every 210 in urban areas. Usually, families on the borders of Kansas and Nebraska have to drive to Denver to get counseling for mental health.
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Governor Jared Polis has prioritized mental health in Colorado by strengthening crisis services, expanding insurance coverage, and supporting youth mental health. Key initiatives include streamlining the 988 mental health line, implementing the "I Matter" youth therapy program, and signing laws to ensure equitable insurance coverage for treatment.
He established the Behavioral Health Task Force which then created a brand new state agency, the Behavioral Health Administration (BHA), to streamline and improve Colorado’s fragmented mental health care, but instead of immediately helping the crisis, the BHA got quickly enmeshed in a crisis of its own. It fired its first director, who then filed a federal lawsuit seeking financial compensation and the return of her job because she alleges the state fired her because of her race.
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The administration has faced backlash for cuts to autism care, and legal challenges over Medicaid. Parents and advocates have sued the Colorado health agency over cuts to autism services. So unfortunately, little has changed and the Eastern Plain families have received very little to alleviate the problem.​​
In the meantime, the farming families of the plains are dealing with the same issues. Farming has always been an unpredictable business, vulnerable to forces that feel beyond any one person’s control. I can’t imagine the anxiety of watching a hailstorm destroy four months of labor, or the war in Ukraine drive up the price of fertilizer. The hours are grueling; some ranchers don’t take vacations, or if they do, they take them separately from their spouses. But there was one stressor that loomed larger than all the rest in our conversations: the drought.
I grew up in an irrigation farming area fed by the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Rivers. Dry land farming takes a whole lot of trust in God to provide the rain needed for crops. I think all of us on the eastern side of Colorado need to make prayer for rain for our dry land farmers a priority. We also need to pray for mental and physical health facilities closer to farming communities.
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For those of you that can’t find joy in life and every day is more depressing and harder to bear, call for help. Talk with a friend, pastor, or call Colorado Crisis Services (dial 988). Life is worth living and God loves you.
KLN
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:27 NIV