The 1940s Archives | Applebox Belles: The Women of Lake Country’s Packinghouses

Yoshiko Kobayashi and Mary Carter, 1940s

Yoshiko Kobayashi and Mary Carter sitting on pilings at the Okanagan Centre wharf.

Before the strike – Applebox belles at the loading dock, 1940s

Vernon Fruit Union, Oyama.

Ivy Fallow

Ivy Malpass was born in 1907 in Armstrong, BC. As a teenager, she went to work as a summer girl at the East Kelowna packinghouse. Here Ivy met […]

Big Chief brand apple box label

The Okanagan Valley Land Company packed ‘C’ grade apples under the Big Chief label.

Nora, Yoshi, and Kate, 1948

Nora Carter, Yoshi Kobayashi, and Kate at the Okanagan Valley Land Company camp, 1948.

Marjorie Brixton

Marjorie Brixton with daughter Eleanor, 1948

Applebox Belles at the Woodsdale packinghouse, 1940s

“We really got on with each other, even though there were so many different characters. There were so many memories.” Winnie Heyworth, 2012

Jimmie Price Kobayashi Medvedeff

Jimmie Price Kobayashi Medvedeff Interview October 28th, 2015 Eleanor ‘Jimmie’ Price traveled from Red Deer, Alberta in 1947 to work as a ‘Summer Girl’. She was twenty years […]

Summer Girls

Left to right: Bea Smorden, Joyce Bell, and Eleanor ‘Jimmie’ Price, 1947.

Applebox Belles, 1940s

Applebox belles on the packing line at the Vernon Fruit Union, Oyama 1940s.

Staff of the Okanagan Valley Land Company packinghouse, Okanagan Centre, October 15th, 1948

OK Apples brand box label

The OK Apples brand box label was used by the Vernon Fruit Union packinghouses.