Dust Bowl Survivor To Discuss Her Biographical Novel

Norma Welty, a Twin Cities author and survivor of the great American Dust Bowl, will lead a discussion Saturday (Dec. 1) about her debut biographical novel "The Dirty Days."

The event is scheduled to go from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday at J. Arthur's Coffee shop, 2441 Rice St. in Roseville.

Welty, 87, is a retired English teacher who up until age 80 did not own her own computer.

Today, the self-described "late bloomer" has made the most of her computer: Welty has penned "The Dirty Days." It's a historical novel based on her life growing up dirt poor on the dusty plains of Oklahoma during the 1930s Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, she said.

A press statement gives this background on Welty:

Norma Welty grew up in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl during the Great Depression.  She left her family’s tenant farm in the early 1940s, moving to Oklahoma City, where she worked as a genuine Rosie the Riveter in a local defense plant.  There, she met her future husband, Robert, a soldier.

When the war ended, she and her husband moved to western Wisconsin where Norma modeled professionally, earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, then taught high school English for twenty-one years.  At retirement, she moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where she lives today. 

For further information about Welty and how to buy her book, click on to her website.