Author Verne Patten was born the month the huge stock market crash of 1929 occurred, which started the worst seven years of depression the USA has ever experienced. Verne's parents sometimes brought homeless strangers to the house for a meal and a warm place to sleep overnight. Discussions heard in his early years about life on the road and his parents recounting them later, often referring to, "our hungry years," awakened a deep sympathy in Verne for homeless people that remains today. Much of the information and background for Somewhere Every Day was gleaned from conversation with street persons while working part-time in a skid-row liquor store during the final months of his military service.