Roy Shoemaker

Beginning in the 1930s, Roy Shoemaker worked on the Benton Harbor Retail Market which sold fruit by the piece. Most of the fruit for the Retail Market was purchased at the Benton Harbor Fruit Market.

They [laborers] came from all over Alabama, Kentucky , Georgia . They’d all come in to pick fruit. Many of these guys would be adopted by these farmers and they would just stay out there with the farmers and later become very successful. [The farmers] helped them become what they are today. Families would get on a flatbed truck, and farmers would take them out to the farm and bring them back home in the evening. That went on for years and years.

HOME / ONLINE EXHIBIT / TEACHER RESOURCES / LINKS / SITE INDEX

WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY / FT. MIAMI HERITAGE SOCIETY OF MICHIGAN