Herb Marlow

Hood River Home Herb Marlow

Hood River Home is the story of a family of migrant fruit workers - the Rainys - as they lived and worked in the mid-1960s. The book is set in the Hood River Valley of Oregon, and the facts about pear farms and the canning of pears are as accurate as the author can make them for that time period. Herb Marlow is intimately familiar with the canning process as he worked for Atlas Pacific Engineering at Diamond Fruit Growers in Hood River, Oregon for six years. (Herb is Bob Martin in the book.) He had friends there who were both natives of the Hood River Valley, and itinerant workers who followed the fruit harvests all over the western United States In the time period that this book covers, migrant fruit workers were a little known and very special segment of American society. The author has had no contact with these hard-working people since he left the Oregon area in the early 1970s, and thus he has no idea of the changes that have taken place in working and living conditions. At the time he writes about, some people native to the Valley, held the fruit workers in contempt and treated them badly. But others, like Kats Sakamoto and Doctor Ashley, accepted them as valuable and industrious people and treated them with respect.