People Archives | Page 2 of 4 | Applebox Belles: The Women of Lake Country’s Packinghouses

Nora, Yoshi, and Kate, 1948

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

Doukhobor Girls, 1957

Five of the summer girls at the Woodsdale packinghouse, October 9th, 1957.

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

Okanagan Valley Land Company sorters, 1937

The sorters of the Okanagan Valley Land Company packinghouse, Okanagan Centre, 1937. Left to right: Back row: unknown, unknown, unknown, Ted Nuyens, unknown, Pam Wentworth Front row: Nellie […]

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.

Bea Smorden Taiji

Bea Smorden Taiji Interview September 29th, 2015 Bea Smorden Taiji was born in Slocan Park, BC in 1930, the daughter of a Doukhobor family. Bea began coming to […]

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

Dorothea Allison, 1912

My job at present is apple-packing. I rush over the cooking washing etc in the morning — have one of the pickers in to dinner, wash up and […]

Square dancing party near the Woodsdale packinghouse, 1950s

The packinghouses fostered this camaraderie by holding dances each harvest season for the workers and their families, and in later years, dinners.