Here is the latest newsletter installment of an image from the museum’s award-winning book Watershed Moments – A Pictorial History of Courtenay and District.
Photo credit: Local members of the British Columbia Women’s Service Corps display plums picked for the “Jam for Britain” campaign, ca. 1941. Left to right: Pam Harvey, Mrs. Lucy Muir, Mrs. Clive, Mary Bell. Lynn Henderson photograph. Photo: 982.24.76. Page 182.
Photo caption: “In 1941, the Red Cross, the Women’s Institute (WI) and the Comox Valley Co-operative Producers joined forces with the people of the valley to send jam to Britain. They borrowed a jam kettle from the Creamery and asked the public to take surplus fruit and sugar to the old cannery, where Mrs. McPhee, Mrs. Harmston and the ladies of the WI made plum and blackberry jam. Children raised money to purchase sugar and went on blackberry-picking expeditions by the busload. The Courtenay Rotary Club arranged the buses and helped with packing. That year, they shipped three tons of jam. In the following two years, when the harvest was leaner, two tons.” Page 182.
