From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:
During both world wars, food security became a major concern.
With so many young men serving overseas, there was a pressing need for more farm workers, and in response, Ontario created the Farm Service Corps in 1917. This initiative recruited people not serving in the military, primarily women and students, to work in agriculture.
The women and girls who participated in this program became known as the Farmerettes.
During WWI, the local news columns and advertisements made mention of women who worked as farmerettes. One Victory Bond ad from November 3, 1919, described how the farmerettes and other women engaged in war work “inspired the manhood and ennobled the womanhood of Canada by their labours of love and sacrifice.”
When Canada entered WWII in September of 1939, the same concerns arose with a shortage of farm workers. The government quickly reacted, establishing the Ontario Farm Service Force. The Force had numerous different brigades based on demographics: children over twelve, men who had been rejected for military service, women of various ages, and people who could not commit to long-term farm service but could assist on local farms for short periods of time.
Throughout the war, tens of thousands of people signed up. However, the most successful was the Farmerette Brigade, which recruited young women students, sixteen years of age and up, who would assist with fruit and vegetable farming. The program was so popular that it continued past the end of WWII, ending in 1952.
Amongst the Farmerettes were many young women from the Sault Ste. Marie area. While local newspapers referenced at least one girl from Spanish who had been placed at a farm in Bar River, many more were sent to Southern Ontario, and in particular, to fruit farms in the Niagara region. Friends would ride the train down from Sault Ste. Marie together but wouldn’t necessarily find themselves working next to each other; some found themselves separated, sent to posts where they knew none of their fellow workers.
There could also be a mix of people working at any given place. Some farms had only Farmerettes, others had workers from other programs, and some of the girls even saw German POWs working on neighbouring fields.
The Sault Daily Star proudly reported on the girls moving down south. “When you buy a basket of Ontario fruit this summer, you may find you have bought peaches picked by Barbara Lamb,” one announcement from July 26, 1943, read.
And pick peaches she did. Barbara Lamb was quoted in the book Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: Memories of Ontario Farmerettes, saying, “I had never seen black cherries, peaches, pears and grapes growing, and it was an experience for a young person from the north. I will never forget the feeling of each fuzz that adhered to my skin when picking or packing that fruit. To this day, I have to peel a peach before eating it.”
Many members of the Farm Service Force stayed in camps supervised by the YMCA and YWCA, and there were a lot of people to house. Some stayed on farms in tent cities; others lived in fruit packing sheds, barns, and garages; still others slept on cots in repurposed classrooms. In some cases, dormitories were built to house the girls. The Farmerettes lived under the supervision of a House Mother, who enforced strict rules about the number of late nights.
According to a 1941 Sault Daily Star article, the Farmerettes would be paid a minimum hourly wage of $0.175, and they would have to shell out $4 per week for room and board.
In 1944, Josephine Murray, Shirley Ibbitson, Pat Wright, Jean Taylor, and Jean McLeod sent a letter from their post near St. Catharine’s, describing life as a farmerette. It ran in the Sault Daily Star on August 11, 1944, and provided a picture of their typical day.
“The girls write that it all begins about six o’clock every morning with a bell rung by one of the kitchen staff. Promptly, fifty farmerettes roll over and go back to sleep, only to be rudely awakened as the Labour Secretary cruelly removes the covers, exposing them to the cold morning air.
"The girls crawl into their dirty overalls and stagger down to the washroom. Before they even have time to comb their hair, the breakfast bell goes, and they all dash madly into the mess hall to partake of their meagre meal, which always consists of bacon and hot cereal. … [S]uddenly up the road rumble huge trucks which cart them off to individual farms. Here, on the dot of eight, they start their daily grind, which may consist of cutting asparagus, hoeing, thinning peaches, picking strawberries, cherries, plums, blackberries, apples, or peaches.
"When five o’clock finally comes, dirty, worn and weary, they are bounced back to camp on the back of the rattly old trucks.” They noted that “all kidding aside, they are having a great time.”
In August of 1945, six farmerettes – Donna Andrews, Phyllis MacKay, Doreen Wright, Jean Young, Gerry Watson, and Barbara Lamb – stopped by the Sault Star office to recount their experiences.
That year, a group of girls from Sault Ste. Marie worked at a farm in Vineland.
In an article from August 10, 1945, they noted the asparagus as a particularly gruelling part of their work.
“For six weeks, the girls did nothing but cut asparagus all day long. They told us that after the first full day of crouching almost on the ground to cut the asparagus, they were so stiff they could hardly move and that the next morning they had to be practically dragged out of bed.”
The article continued to describe the Sault Ste. Marie contribution to the Farmerette brigade.
In addition to the group of girls in Vineland, another smaller group of Sault girls was posted in Grimsby, one of whom, Barbara Lamb, had a photo of her featured in the Globe and Mail’s Farmerette of the Week column. There were also Sault Farmerettes in at least five other camps, all in the general St. Catherine’s area
In their free time, they would jump in the hay, go swimming at nearby beaches, go to dances, and hitchhike into town.
They had no shortage of people offering them rides – with their recognizable farm service badges, they found that people “treated them like servicemen.” In fact, the girls interviewed had all hitchhiked all the way from Southern Ontario to the Soo.
They had left their camp at about six p.m., and the fastest girls arrived at 10 p.m. the following night.
The work was not without its risks.
In her August 1945 interview with the Sault Star, Phyllis MacKay described how she found herself clinging to the limb of a cherry tree when the ladder fell out from under her.
In a blog post, Betty-Lou Denton, another farmerette from Sault Ste. Marie described being driven from one farm to another, hanging on to a truck with no back or sides. When the farmer drove over a pothole, Betty-Lou became airborne and landed headfirst on the road.
She had no memory of the incident, repeatedly asking what had happened. This was all to the dismay of her mother, who came to the Southern Ontario farm with the intention of taking Betty-Lou home; Betty-Lou convinced her mother to let her finish out the rest of the farming season.
This presumably was the incident described in the Sault Daily Star on July 5, 1945.
“Betty Lou, who also joined the Farm Service and who is employed at St. Catharine’s, is better after having been in an accident.”
The young women also found publications geared towards their behaviour while performing war work.
For $0.15, they could send away for a copy of Etiquette For Young Moderns, which included reminders about behaviour, lipstick, bright nail polish, and more – which the Sault Daily Star noted was all the more important with so many girls being away from home.
So, what made the Farmerette initiative so popular?
While many were certainly driven by a patriotic desire to do their part for the war effort, there were plenty of other motivators. Farmerettes were given the tantalizing offer of time off school. Students with good grades were promised an exemption from their final exams in exchange for thirteen weeks of farm work.
“Be nice, teachers,” read one Sault Daily Star article from April 6, 1946. “You wouldn’t want Canada to starve because some farmerettes weren’t allowed to leave to harvest the crop.”
For Betty-Lou Denton, it was the academic perk and the prospect of more freedom that encouraged her to join.
She said, “I was getting out of writing my chemistry exam and escaping the watchful eye of my mother.”
All Farmerettes signed a pledge that they were expected to keep on hand. They were also encouraged to carry the poem It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar Guest, which had been patriotically renamed It Can Be Done by the Ontario Farm Service Force. The final stanza may have said it best:
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it.
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That “couldn’t be done,” and you’ll do it.
This article was written using information compiled from the Sault Star Archive Collection at the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library, the book Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: Memories of Ontario Farmerettes and from Esprit de Corps, a Canadian military magazine.
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