Austin Cupp

Beginning in the 1930s, Austin Cupp worked in his father’s stall at the Benton Harbor Fruit Market until the 1950s.

The Midwest ha[s] some of the best flavor of fruits in the United States. Not only in our area of southern Michigan, but in all of Michigan.

I think the first time I ever drove a loaded truck to Chicago alone, I was either fourteen or fifteen, which is unheard of today. Back then you did what you had to do.

The labor has become very interesting because most of your labor came from the South. Families in bigger farms out here had labor camps to house these southern people. The southern people started out with strawberries, which is the earliest crop which came around the first of June. When mechanical harvesting came along, it picked the cherries and grapes. Thousands of people from the south came to work on these farms.