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Ep.12 - The Dust Bowl Cousins

 
  Original Airdate: December 7, 1972
Writer: Paul Savage
Director: Robert Butler

Prologue:

 
  "Whenever I look back to those days when I was growing up in the great Depression I'm always convinced that I came from a remarkable family. It wasn't that my brothers and sisters and I were sheltered from the realities of those difficult times, it was simply that our mother and father had a way of making more of what we had and less of what we didn't have."

 

Synopsis:

 

Cousin Cora Denby have arrived unannounced from Kansas with her husband Hamilton (Ham) and their son Job. They have lost their farm to the Dust Bowl. As the family listens to George Burns and Ginger Allen on the radio John-Boy writes his thoughts down about the new challenges that the visiting family has brought with them. Ham and Job have stolen food from Ike's store, Job has made moves on Mary Ellen and has been caught smoking with her in the garden shed. More than a month passes while Ham waits for a letter to arrive about a job in Newport News. Tensions with the visitors come to a boil when John-Boy and Job get into a fist fight.


  Cora realizes that it is time to move on but not before Ham reveals his plan to make a claim on John-Boy's meadow. Cora intervenes though stating that her father was a wanderer like Ham as well and he had sold the land back to the Walton family and that they need to find their own way without resorting to such measures.

Secondary Story:

 
 

Mary Ellen feels that she will never get to see anything beyond Walton's Mountain except Charlottesville. She takes an interest in the places that Job has seen but the boy causes nothing but trouble for her.

Epilogue:

 
  "We heard from Cora a few times after they left. They settled finally in up-state New York in a place called the Mohawk valley and they did all right farming. Grandpa used to say that Ham must have learned one of the Walton secrets in spite of himself - that the world wasn't like the song said "just a bowl of cherries" but that you had to go out and climb the tree, and bark your shins a few times doing it, and pick those cherries yourself."

Episode Notes:

 
 
  • The director Robert Butler won for Best Direction in a Dramatic Series from the Directors Guild of America for this episode.
  • Olivia's Christmas cactus makes it's first appearance since "The Homecoming".
  • John has 12 acres of land that have been divided up to all his children.
  • Jason is 15 and Mary Ellen is 13.

Additional Cast:

 
 

Guest Stars: Warren Vanders (Ham Denby), Jay MacIntosh (Cora Denby), Ken Wolger (Job Denby) with: Joe Conley (Ike Godsey), Richard Donner (Yancy Tucker)

 

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