I've been reading the posts about sugar beet farming with interest. Those who are interested in learning more about the kind of hardships endured by the GR immigrants in the beet fields of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana should read the book Second Hoeing by Hope Williams Sykes (ISBN 0-8032-9129-9). It is available through AHSGR. It is a novel about the trials of a GR family on a sugar beet farm in Colorado. According to the back cover "Hope Williams Sykes (1901-73) devoted the greater part of her writing career to the portrayal of German-Russian immigrants. ------" I sent this book to my aunt to read a couple of years ago. After reading it, her comment was "Oh that brought back so many memories-----". She didn't go into detail and I don't think they were very good memories. My grandparents (Conrad Lofing/Lofink - Norka and Elizabeth Busch - Dietel) worked on sugar beet farms first in the Garden City Kansas, Sugar City Colorado area and then in Park City Montana. My father and uncles quite school after the eighth grade because they had to work sugar beet harvest which could run into early November in Montana depending on the weather. Larry Lofing