I found this picture in my parents picture collection. Anderson/Fleming. These ladies worked in the Box Factory in Oliver in 1947.
My mom, Margaret (Fleming) Anderson is the 3rd from the back, top row.
Does anyone recognize anyone else?
Audrey MacNaughton
Editor’s note – picture is not very clear but we will attempt to obtain and scan
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More history with John Kiss
We also had a Sawmill in Oliver. It took up a large area, south, south-east of the SUN-RYPE Juice Plant, on the East side of the railroad tracks and Sawmill Road.
It even had it’s own little lake on which the timbers floated to be sorted. Also it had a Box Factory, where dozens of people made all the boxes and box materials
for all the packed fruit to be shipped out in. There were no cardboard boxes those days. The railroad had tracks right into the mill yard, empty cars were dropped off every morning to be loaded with all the different sized lumber. All the loading was done by muscle power, one piece at a time. Sawmill work was hard work, but the mill and Box Factory gave employment for a lot of people. Office workers, maintenance, surveyors loggers, truckers and the dozens and dozens of people on the floor of the mill and Box Factory. I am certain, there are still some people around, who worked there, but there must be many more descendants who must have memories. many of the ladies, who worked at the Box Factory, same as the ones at the packing houses, were mothers, who took their young ones to babysitters in the early morning hours, so they can show up at work at 7 or 8 A.M. Thank you to all of them.
Also thank you to Audrey MacNaughton for the picture showing the ladies, who worked there.
Besides the Packing Houses, we had a SUN-RYPE Juice Plant in Oliver. It was located directly South of the Oliver Co-Operative Growers Exchange Packing House.
It had a gigantic press, that pressed the juice out of the apples. The pressed juice was processed and for many, many years was also canned right here, on location.
It employed a large number of people, and it was a very well producing plant, for years more efficient than the main plant in Kelowna. As years went by, somewhere, the decision was made to stop the canning operation in Oliver, just do it all at the Kelowna plant. The juicing of apples continued on for years. The pressed juice was transported in big tanker trucks to the Kelowna plant to be canned. Eventually, the Oliver Plant was shut down, all the juicing apples had to be hauled up to the Kelowna plant. The property and building became part of the Oliver Co-Op, and for years was used as the Maintenance Shop.