MSI Press Blog

  Sharon Cole's book, Hazel and Olaf reached #4 among hot new releases in the category of Great Depression and #24 in depression history (Amazon general category). Book Description: They sold the farm, packed up seven children, and chased a promise called California. Based on Hazel’s journal, this true story follows a family that leaves Wisconsin hoping for relief from brutal winters—only to run out of money with hundreds of miles still to go. Stranded and desperate, they enter a world of labor camps, endless fieldwork, hunger, and exhaustion, where families are worked hard, paid little, and treated as disposable. Once respected and secure, they find themselves suddenly labeled vagrants. Pride becomes a liability. Dignity must be defended daily. And survival depends on grit, faith, and refusing to give up—especially for Hazel, who will not allow poverty to erase who she is or break her family apart. This is a raw, gripping true story of endurance, injustice, and a woman who stood ...

  Sharon Cole's book, Hazel and Olaf reached #4 among hot new releases in the category of Great Depression and #24 in depression history (Amazon general category). Book Description: They sold the farm, packed up seven children, and chased a promise called California. Based on Hazel’s journal, this true story follows a family that leaves Wisconsin hoping for relief from brutal winters—only to run out of money with hundreds of miles still to go. Stranded and desperate, they enter a world of labor camps, endless fieldwork, hunger, and exhaustion, where families are worked hard, paid little, and treated as disposable. Once respected and secure, they find themselves suddenly labeled vagrants. Pride becomes a liability. Dignity must be defended daily. And survival depends on grit, faith, and refusing to give up—especially for Hazel, who will not allow poverty to erase who she is or break her family apart. This is a raw, gripping true story of endurance, injustice, and a woman who stood ...

  Sharon Cole's book, Hazel and Olaf reached #4 among hot new releases in the category of Great Depression and #24 in depression history (Amazon general category). Book Description: They sold the farm, packed up seven children, and chased a promise called California. Based on Hazel’s journal, this true story follows a family that leaves Wisconsin hoping for relief from brutal winters—only to run out of money with hundreds of miles still to go. Stranded and desperate, they enter a world of labor camps, endless fieldwork, hunger, and exhaustion, where families are worked hard, paid little, and treated as disposable. Once respected and secure, they find themselves suddenly labeled vagrants. Pride becomes a liability. Dignity must be defended daily. And survival depends on grit, faith, and refusing to give up—especially for Hazel, who will not allow poverty to erase who she is or break her family apart. This is a raw, gripping true story of endurance, injustice, and a woman who stood ...

  Sharon Cole's book, Hazel and Olaf   reached #4 among hot new releases in the category of Great Depression and #24 in depression history (Amazon general category). Book Description: They sold the farm, packed up seven children, and chased a promise called California. Based on Hazel’s journal, this true story follows a family that leaves Wisconsin hoping for relief from brutal winters—only to run out of money with hundreds of miles still to go. Stranded and desperate, they enter a world of labor camps, endless fieldwork, hunger, and exhaustion, where families are worked hard, paid little, and treated as disposable. Once respected and secure, they find themselves suddenly labeled vagrants. Pride becomes a liability. Dignity must be defended daily. And survival depends on grit, faith, and refusing to give up—especially for Hazel, who will not allow poverty to erase who she is or break her family apart. This is a raw, gripping true story of endurance, injustice, and a woman who ...

  The Mission Village Voice has published a lovely and insightful interview with Sharon Cole ( Hazel and Olaf ): " California or Bust ." Book Description: They sold the farm, packed up seven children, and chased a promise called California. Based on Hazel’s journal, this true story follows a family that leaves Wisconsin hoping for relief from brutal winters—only to run out of money with hundreds of miles still to go. Stranded and desperate, they enter a world of labor camps, endless fieldwork, hunger, and exhaustion, where families are worked hard, paid little, and treated as disposable. Once respected and secure, they find themselves suddenly labeled vagrants. Pride becomes a liability. Dignity must be defended daily. And survival depends on grit, faith, and refusing to give up—especially for Hazel, who will not allow poverty to erase who she is or break her family apart. This is a raw, gripping true story of endurance, injustice, and a woman who stood her ground when every...

  When we think of Labor Day, we often picture barbecues, parades, and a long weekend. But the holiday was born from struggle — from the fight for dignity in work. And few places remind us of that struggle more starkly than the migrant labor camps of Depression-era California. In the 1930s, thousands of families fled the Dust Bowl, chasing rumors of steady work in California’s fields. What they found instead were overcrowded camps, makeshift tents, and endless rows of crops that promised survival but rarely delivered security. These were the “Okies” and “Arkies” — men, women, and children who bent their backs under the sun for pennies a day. They were not lazy or broken; they were displaced, resilient, and determined to live. The government eventually built federal camps — places like Arvin, Shafter, and Weedpatch — where sanitation, education, and community began to take root. Dorothea Lange’s photographs and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath captured their faces and their end...

  Sharon Cole's book, Hazel and Olaf , recently reached #25 in the Amazon category, depression history in the US, and #4 among hot new releases in the category, Great Depression. Book Description: They sold the farm, packed up seven children, and chased a promise called California. Based on Hazel’s journal, this true story follows a family that leaves Wisconsin hoping for relief from brutal winters—only to run out of money with hundreds of miles still to go. Stranded and desperate, they enter a world of labor camps, endless fieldwork, hunger, and exhaustion, where families are worked hard, paid little, and treated as disposable. Once respected and secure, they find themselves suddenly labeled vagrants. Pride becomes a liability. Dignity must be defended daily. And survival depends on grit, faith, and refusing to give up—especially for Hazel, who will not allow poverty to erase who she is or break her family apart. This is a raw, gripping true story of endurance, injustice, and a wo...