Type 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.

Westbury Hotel

Many of the summer girls boarded at the Westbury Hotel.

Doris Gleed, 1930s

Doris Gleed rides her bicycle past the Okanagan Centre packinghouse.

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 […]

Winfield packinghouse, 1930s

The railway line ran in front of the Winfield packinghouse.

Inez Kenney with three other belles at the Oyama packinghouse

Applebox belles at the Vernon Fruit Union packinghouse, Oyama, 1937. Inez is the second woman from the right.

Effie Smith, Alice Draper, Winnie Draper, Mary Draper, Winfield 1937

Applebox belles on their day off.

Okanagan Centre, 1930s

Gleed’s Store in Okanagan Centre during the Depression.

Alfred and Annie Lodge, Winfield

Alfred and Annie Lodge at Hanthorpe Ranch, Winfield, 1919. Alfred has just returned from the war.

Ikue Kitagawara

Ikue Kitagawara at 19 years old, Nagano-ken, Japan, 1917

Ikue Kobayashi, 1956

Ikue Kobayashi was just nineteen years old when she moved to Okanagan Centre with her new husband. For the first few years, Ikue worked for the Okanagan Valley […]