Early Experience
Phyllis LeShaw
— They put us on a truck at six in the morning. Six in the morning— I don't know my name at six in the morning now. And we wore our dungarees— I think it might have been my first pair of dungarees— and we would sing on the way to the bean fields. And the sun by noon would beat down on us. I don't know how we survived but we were young like you, so you survive.
Frances Koral
— Well, I remember coming to the field the first time, to pick in this gigantic field. We first picked beans, and the fields rose and rose. [It] was an overwhelming experience. It was really quite exhilarating.
Marion Greenstone
— Driven out to the fields in trucks, and we worked for this farmer, Hinman. And I think at first we started picking peas because they came earlier, but the rest of the summer it was string beans. It was hard, very hard. I just can see the light somehow, the sun in the trees on the edges of the fields.
Marjorie Brockman
— For me it was a disaster. I was the woman voted most unlikely to succeed as a bean picker. I have absolutely no physical stamina and it was very hard on me. I do remember that it was really stoop labor but I learned to sit down and squeeze along the rows so that. I hated that to work. It was hot, hot and tiring and boring.
Frances Koral
— We started very early in the morning 'cause I remember we were all not used to getting up that early. And we worked till maybe three o'clock in the afternoon. And it was difficult because we had to bend to pick the beans off the bushes.
Elliot Levine
— The first few weeks in Morrisville I was a very poor picker and many people were.
Marion Greenstone
— And I don't think anybody was wearing a dress. In those days for women to wear jeans or overalls was something. But you couldn't work in a dress.
Frances Koral
— I mean, we were city kids. The biggest thing we did was bicycle or walk. But here we were bending down and picking all day, and you felt sort of a nice release.
Elliot Levine
— Gradually I got to be a decent enough picker. I think I averaged four to five bushels a day, and I was able to pay my room rent and buy my meal ticket. My best picking— I'll never forget it— was on a wax bean field. I picked eight and a half bushels in one day and the really good pickers were up to twelve, and it was a beautiful sight to see. I can see it in my mind's eye, the beautiful golden beans under a bright sun.