Only in this generation had Albert and his family been Mennonites. Sometimes they struggled with the tenets of this new faith, far more restrictive than the Lutheranism of their early years. Along with the stresses of adhering to this new way of life, one that effectively cut them off from communication even with close relatives who lived nearby, was the added struggle of living through the years of the Dustbowl, when for all who lived on farms through those times, the ‘wolf’ of poverty was always at the door. Ultimately, the decision of the family to leave the land of the beloved family homestead, was made both harder and easier by the economic realties of that historic time.