Hole in the Clouds

Tag: 1943

Tomatoes for the Troops

Mar 1, 2016

In January 1943, Australian truck gardener and food packager Edgell & Sons Ltd opened a new cannery in Cowra, New South Wales, for the war effort; by January 1944, these women and other employees working in shifts around the clock had shipped off one million cans of tomatoes and other vegetables.

The cannery at Cowra stayed in operation till 2013, by which time Edgell had shifted over mostly to frozen foods, and every other cannery in Australia had already closed down. Birdseye now owns the company, though Edgell survives as a brand for the Australian market.

food   work   World War II   Australia   industry   factory   women   New South Wales   Cowra   1943   (Image credit: Office of War Information via Shorpy)  

Daddy Folds

Jan 25, 2017

Notes from the Office of War Information, December 1943: "In the evening, Hugh Massman and his wife fold diapers. Joey's bureau drawer crib is moved to the side of their bed for the night."

The Massman family lived in Washington in 1943 while Hugh, a petty officer in the navy, attended a specialized training program. Photographer Esther Bubley spent a few days with them for a feature story about military family life.

After the war, the family returned home to Montana, where they had seven more children.

Washington, DC   baby   World War II   1943   Hugh, Lynn, and Joey Massman   home front   (Image credit: Esther Bubley, via Shorpy)  

Monday in Houston

May 1, 2017

Abe Cweren, an immigrant from Poland who arrived in Texas in 1922, is unloading bananas from his wagon in 1943, at the Valley Fruit stand on Franklin Street in Houston.

The house behind the fruit stand was built before 1900 by a family named Fredericks; in the 1940 census, three years before this photo was taken, the home's inhabitants were listed as a 30-year-old night-club chef named Rudolph Martinez, his wife Candalanca, son Rudolph Jr., sister Isabell Samora, and her two children, Raymond and Joe Louis.

The banana man wrote on the side of his wagon, "Jockey Cweren, Kentucky Derby."

laundry   streetscape   clothesline   houses   wagon   bananas   1943   Abe Cweren   fruit stand   Kodachrome   (Image credit: John Vashon via Shorpy)