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 the Okanagan at the age of fifteen, to work as a seasonal ‘Summer Girl’ in the Okanagan Centre packinghouse.

Headshot of Bea Taiji looking to her right as she remembers back and tells her story.

Bea Taiji: I don’t, I don’t know what I did in the interim between that and fifteen when I came out here to work.

I stayed, I came by train to Penticton and stayed overnight at the Three Gables Hotel. And the next morning Ted Cooney picked me up and brought me here to work.

Black and white photo of Bea at fifteen years old, sitting cross-legged on the grass and smiling.

I came in ’45.

Headshot of Bea talking. She makes a stamping motion with her hand.

And I started out sorting for maybe a couple, maybe a month and then I went stamping, and sizing, and I did a pretty good job on that.

And I pride myself on the fact that one of the big inspectors in the valley said to me ‘Bea, I have never found an error in your sizing.’ And he said, ‘If you ever want another job anywhere in the valley, I would see that you know you had a chance at it.’

Bea demonstrates the shape of a box with her hands.

The sizing of course, you had to look at it and know how many apples were in that box.

She motions carrying a small box and picking out stamps.

And so I carried around a box with all the stamps in, and you never looked, you just looked at the box.

Bea motions the movement of boxes coming down rollers.

And you, you had to be quick because the boxes were coming down.

She shows with her hands the differences in packs of apples across and lengthwise.

You would have a five-three or a three-two pack or a three-three pack and so many lengthwise, so that you could tell immediately how many apples were in that box.

Bea looks down and to the side as she remembers.

We worked hard when we were in the packinghouse. And we would work eight hours, go and have our meal, go back for overtime, work till nine o’clock, and then we’d go dancing.

Bea looks up and smiles.

We lived, we lived like that. It was a good time. And I think that we probably, a lot of us girls that were there, experienced first being away from home.

Black and white formal photo of the packinghouse staff of the Okanagan Valley Land Company, 1946. Bea is sitting on the grass at the front and centre of the group. Followed by a black and white photo of a house and car at Okanagan Centre, 1930s. The packinghouse is in the background.