In honour of International Women's Day, this is a talk Cultural Manager, Angela Bobier gave in June, 2018 at Living History Weekend.
WW2
A Woman’s Work is Never Done
Western
Elgin War Time Farm Life
Sacrifice,
Austerity and Thrift
Good morning everyone. Thank you so much for giving me the chance to
share with you WW2 A Woman’s Work is Never Done. I’m Angela Bobier, Cultural Manager here at
Backus-Page House Museum. At the end I’d
be happy to take questions.
You might be wondering what the significance
of my outfit is today. I figured this
was my one chance to be Miss Canada. I’m
passing around a picture from the Elgin County Archives showing three young
ladies from Rodney in similar attire.
They were part of the Miss Canada Team who went door to door selling
victory bonds. I can only assume the
caps they were wearing were red but today I’m wearing my Grandpa Mervyn Foreman’s WW2
army cap.
During
the Second World War, the federal government took control of all fund-raising
activities through the War Charities Act of 1939 and the organizers of any
event or program were required to secure permission from the Department of
National War Services.
The Miss Canada Team would have been organized
through this department as well. Victory
Loans also known as Victory Bonds raised money for the war effort. There were 9 victory loans between June 15,
1941 to November 1945. Total cash sales
were almost $12 billion. For every $4
invested your return was $5 and your profit didn’t have to be reported on your
income tax.
Rationing & Nutrition
Women also had to deal with Federal
interventions in their kitchens, symbolized by the ration book. I’m passing around some examples of ration
books from our area. Popular slogans
were “Food Will Win the War” and food was a “weapon of war”
1. The
first to be branded a patriotic food was the apple. Promotions included “serve apples daily and
you serve your country too”
2. In 1943 the Nutrition Services Division launched
the Canadian Nutrition Program giving Canadians A LOT of nutrition advice. At
the heart of this campaign was Canada’s Official Food Rules which listed the
six food groups required to maintain a healthy diet:
A.
Milk
B.
cereals
and breads,
C.
fruits
D. vegetables
E.
eggs
F.
“meat, fish, etc.”
As the slogan of the Food Rules reminded Canadians, the
goal was straightforward: “Eat right, feel right – Canada needs you strong!”
Or, as one headline put it more bluntly, “Canada’s Faulty Diet is Adolf
Hitler’s Ally.”
3.
There were thousands of controls on
price, production and distribution of everyday food starting in December 1941 followed by the introduction of
coupon rationing of sugar in July 1942, tea and coffee in August, butter in
December, and meat in March 1943.
Sliced bread and iced cake in bakeries were abolished. Meatless Tuesdays in restaurants began and between
1945 and 1947, meatless Fridays, as well were established.
Reductions in
the production of non-essential goods like chocolate bars and soft drinks (THE
HORROR!!), limitations on the number of tin can sizes that could be used from
116 to only 9 standard sizes, as well as the removal of foods like carrots,
beets, apples, pork and beans, and spaghetti from the list of foods that could
be sold in cans.
One effect was
that Canadians were faced with an increasing number of novel food products. The
artificial sweetener saccharin became far more common in a range of packaged
foods and soybeans entered the Canadian diet in a number of different forms,
whether as a substitute for salted peanuts and peanut butter or as a main
ingredient in “chocolate” bars.
Women also collected fat and bones in their
kitchens when the Department of National War Service instituted a Fats and
Bones collection, essential to munitions production.
Bones are essential to make industrial glues,
“Fat is
Ammunition” – one pound of fat alone supplied “enough glycerine to fire 150
bullets from a Bren gun” and two pounds would “fire a burst of 20 cannon shells
from a Spitfire or 10 anti-aircraft shells.”
Canadian
housewives could “be a munition maker right in your own kitchen.”
Victory
Gardens
Who’s heard of Victory Gardens before? They were very popular in WW1. Normally our kitchen garden here at the
museum is 1850s but this year we decided to plant a Victory Garden for this
event and something different to talk about on museum tours. At the garden entrance you can view a copy of
a poster on what to plant, when, and in what order.
I was shocked
to learn that there was official discouragement of victory gardening by
inexperienced gardeners in the early years of the war. From the perspective of the Department of
Agriculture, inexperienced gardeners were likely to waste valuable commodities
in short supply. One 1942 pamphlet produced by the Department even went so far
as to actively discourage unskilled “city-folk” from planting food gardens
because “they would create the demand for equipment such as garden tools,
fertilizers and sprays, which are made from materials needed by Canada’s war
industries and because Canada’s vegetable seed supply can best be employed by
experienced gardeners with equipment on hand.”
By 1943 and
1944 Victory Gardens were needed and Canadians often took great pride in
tending the thousands of new gardens that began to appear on front lawns and
vacant lots everywhere in the early years of the war. For victory gardeners,
they were an important contribution to the war effort – they freed up
agricultural production and shipping space that could be used to send more food
to Canada’s allies and they provided a ready supply of fresh, nutritious
foods. At its 1944 peak, it was estimated that upwards of 209,200 victory
gardens were in operation nationwide producing a total of 57,000 tons of
vegetables.
Food
Relief campaigns
Women really stepped up to organize food
relief campaigns.
Red Cross – food parcels for Allied prisoners
of war
Jam for Britain with Red Cross and in
partnership with Federated Women’s Institutes and Circles Fermieres
Our Local Women’s Institutes idn West Elgin
and Dunwich: wrote letters, knitted caps and gloves, made quilts, sent parcels,
sewed pajamas, made jams and jellies, sent honey and condensed milk, made ditty
(toiletry) bags for the Navy, salvaged scrap metal, supported local blood donor
clinics, and much more. In the museum’s
kitchen is more information compiled by our Summer Assistant Manager, Sabrina
Merks.
Helping
family overseas:
Anyone in Canada who had family overseas was
mostly likely VERY worried about them.
Due to shortages many, like my own Grandparents probably sent care
packages. I recently found a letter to
my Grandfather, Mervyn Foreman from his sister Doris in Wales. I’ll read a few portions regarding the
shortages in Britain.
I don’t know if my Grandparents sent Doris
stockings for her wedding or if she managed to find enough ingredients to make
a wedding cake. I do know that Doris married John Rosser on
Christmas Eve, 1942 and had two daughters.
I also know that my Grandparents were married on June 30, 1943 75
years ago at St. Peter’s Anglican Church.
There is a small display inside the museum of their wedding certificate,
photo and ration cards.
Please walk through the museum today to see
display on the Women’s Institutes, George Henry Backus, Don Hockin, WW2, and
our 2018 exhibit of Hats and Trailblazers featuring WW2 veteran Lorne
Spicer.
A War Time Wedding
St. Peter’s Anglican
Church, Tyrconnell, was the site for the wedding of Miss Marion Marie Davy to
Mr. Mervyn Foreman on June 30, 1943.
Mervyn arrived in Canada from Wales in 1927 and was a Private in the
Prince Edward Island Highlanders “Black Watch” stationed at St. John’s New
Brunswick and came home to Wallacetown on leave. Engaged for some time, the war interrupted
wedding plans so a wedding was quickly organized.
John S. Pearce (descendent
of original settler, John Pearce) stood as Best Man. Mervyn had worked as a hired man on the
Pearce Farm and other local farms for many years. Ushers were Morley Page (last resident of
Backus-Page House Museum), Clarence Bobier and Johnny Bobier of
Wallacetown.
Marion and Maid of Honour,
Ila McArthur, had grown up together.
Marion’s mother, Ida Davy was best friends with Grace Page (of
Backus-Page House Museum) and it is likely that Grace assisted with decorating
the church. Iris Page (daughter of
Morley and Grace) said her mother was regularly asked to decorate for
weddings.
According to Audrey
Littlejohn, the reception was held in Wallacetown at Davy’s Garage and
Restaurant, now Small Town Auto. Currie
Road was blocked at Talbot Line and at Argyle Street, so the road could be used
for dancing. Mervyn and Marion lived for
a time with her parents, Sam and Ida Davy, after the War until they built their
home on Talbot Line in Wallacetown around 1950.
Mervyn and Marion’s
Granddaughter, Angela Foreman-Bobier is now Cultural Manager here at
Backus-Page House Museum and is married to John Bobier, great grandson of
Clarence Bobier and great great nephew of Johnny Bobier who served as ushers at
this War Time Wedding.
Small Town Connections
Wedding Photograph, Certificate of Marriage and Ration
Cards from the personal collection of Angela Foreman-Bobier
