The original Sun-Maid girl was a 105-year-old New Jersey woman who beat Covid toasts.

The sun-maid raisins company has a logo on their boxes.The logo with the painting of a brunette on it is both cute and colorful.Did you know how the logo was created?Do you know who the model was?Not many people do that.

In 1983 she passed away at the age of 91.She was the original poster girl.

The original Sun-Maid girl, at age 22, was hired by the company to model for a painting that would be their corporate logo and trademark.

Like most California stories, she was spotted by a man who was a managing executive at the fruit packing company where her father and brother worked.The Panama Pacific Exposition took place in San Francisco.The company that was being promoted was called the California Associated Raisin company.The rebirth of San Francisco after the deadly fire and earthquake of 1906 was celebrated at the exposition.

Many of the young women she worked with at the fair wore costumes of that period that were made of long, white dresses with blue bonnet and kerchief.The women were given boxes of raisins and flyers to give to visitors.They threw raisins out of an airplane over the crowd.

At that time, she was taking a break from working at the exposition.She was seen by Mr. Payne after she washed her hair and put on her mother's red sunbonnet.She was seen in the backyard of her family's home with a red bonnet on her head.That's all it took for Miss Lorraine to go from a $15 a week wage earner at the fruit packing company to being immortalized on a package of raisins that was worn during the expo buy today.

The beginning of the well-known corporate logo was created by the San Francisco artist who painted the portrait of Lorraine in watercolor.Her watercolor portrait appeared on packaging as early as 1916.

The image evolved and was updated to reflect the changing times.One of the earlier images shows the bonnet that Collett wore as a red, but the background was blue as were the original bonnets.From 1960 to 1974 the logo/ image was reworked.The Sun-Maid Raisin Company had earlier logos.

As the logo changed, so did the box color.The most recent update was in 2009.There is a new logo on the boxes of raisins.

There were financial, marketing and promotional benefits to dried raisins for growers in the valley.They thought the name was appropriate for dried grapes.The Sun-Made raisins were added because of the costume worn by the spokeswoman.It was considered a perfect fit because of the play on words.

After the creation of the logo, aggressive marketing was put in place.By the end of the decade, raisin consumption in the United States had hit a new all-time high and had tripled in sales.Sun-Maid had a new face.

In 1976, she was a guest on the Mike Douglas show where she entertained a new generation of raisin lovers with the history of the Sun-Maid Raisin girl.

She gave the original portrait of her and her original bonnet to the Sun Maid Raisin Growers after she received a plaque from Sun-Maid.I have heard that she was paid $1700 at the time, but I don't know if it's true.I think it's possible, though I don't know for sure.

Four years after her death in 1983, the Sun-Maid company, on their 75th anniversary, donated her bonnet to the Smithsonian, but I believe they kept the original painting which is quite valuable.

Miss Collett was busy.She did some acting after working as a model ling.Only in California!She landed a small part in a movie called The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, but then returned to her hometown to pursue other interests.In blue.

She ran a restaurant for 2 years.She ran a cattle ranch and converted an old hospital into a nursing home.She was connected to the Sun-Maid Raisin company until she died.

I found it interesting that many of our celebrity's start was the same, from waiting tables to working as a barista or even a grocery clerk.I think luck is dependent on small things.

I have always been fascinated with the SunMaid raisins girl, even though Miss Lorraine is part of our culture and American heritage now.The picture on my lunch box made her seem real to me as a child.

If we didn't have raisins to work with, American cooking and baking would not be what it is today.I can't imagine a pumpkin cake without them.

I was given a huge box of chcolate covered raisins for a gift and it took me awhile to get through them all, but I didn't share any of them.The chocolate covered ones are my favorite and I recently discovered the strawberry yogurt covered one.

These might be your new favorite snack.Thank goodness for Amazon because these are not available in our small grocery.Enjoy!