Entrepreneurs work hard, but love what they do.
Maria Martinez was born in Tampico, Mexico. Her husband was from Texas. They met when he was visiting family south of the border, began dating, and got married in Mexico. Maria was from the city, with dreams of being a stay-at-home housewife. Her life didn’t turn out that way.
Instead, she accompanied her husband’s family to Michigan to help farmers harvest their fields. One of those fields was near Fennville. She remembers waking up at 4 a.m. to the sound of her mother-in-law making and packing tortillas for the family’s lunch that day in the cucumber fields. It was a rude awakening.
“In Mexico I was raised in a town. I didn’t know how to pick — I was used to going to the store,” remembers Maria.
But she did — not only in Fennville, but up and down West Michigan. At her side was her sister-in-law, Juanita Raez.
“We picked cherries, blueberries, apples, cauliflower, and cucumbers.”
After a few years, when her father-in-law got tired of driving between Michigan and Mexico and up and down the coast, the family looked for a place to settle.