Remembrance Day Approaches
As we approach Remembrance Day, I’m reminded of the impacts WWI had on the homefront here in Canada, and the roles women played.
My main characters in the WWI timeline in No Secrets Among Sisters, were heavily involved in manufacturing munitions. The factories ran primarily on women’s labour and many enjoyed this newfound sense of independence, as I’ve written about in other blog posts.
In the story, Frankie and her sister Mattie, in addition to working in the factory, support the war effort in other ways. They frequently attend Red Cross meetings where I describe their efforts contributing to “ditty bags” which were small bags filled with essentials for soldiers overseas. Thousands of these bags would travel across the ocean carrying knitted socks, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, tobacco, and a variety of other items. Frankie and her fellow suffragists attend recruiting events which were designed to bolster the troops in Canada.
There’s also the emotional minefield for those whose husbands or sons have gone to war. Some readers have identified and care deeply for Witty, Frankie’s landlady who is deeply worried about her husband, Harvey. Here’s an excerpt from the summer of 1916 when Witty’s having trouble coping:
“Witty has taken to knitting day and night as a distraction. Mostly socks and scarves to add to the ditty bags for soldiers on the front, but her supply of yarn runs out in early summer. In July, as British troops begin the Battle of the Somme, she resorts to unravelling her own sweaters to keep her needles busy. Frankie and Mattie watch with dismay as she unravels one sleeve, one panel, one back at a time in an apparent daze—forest green wool, grey, rust, mottled brown, robin’s egg blue. Long, handknit rows falling victim to her dogged destruction, kinky strands of wool the only evidence of the once-warm cardigans and pullovers.”
(No Secrets Among Sisters, Terrill, 2025, pg. 198)
In addition to my great-aunt’s own account of the timeframe in the History of the Ford Family, and vast online archives from the war, I found the journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery incredibly insightful. Her visceral response to the war guided me in my development of Witty’s character.
“August 5, 1914
The Manse, Leaskdale, Ont
England has declared war on Germany!
Good God, I cannot believe it! It must be a horrible dream. It has come up like a thundercloud.”
(L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals, The Ontario Years, 1911-1917, Edited by Jun Rubio, Rock’s Mills Press, 2016, pg. 161)
Montgomery’s daily accounts contain vivid descriptions of what it was like on the homefront. She waits for news each day to come from the papers, often to the detriment of her daily household routines, and when those are absent, keenly feels it, like this passage when she is in Indiana before the U.S. has joined the war,
“Friday, Sept. 15, 1916
Warsaw, Ind.
It seems so strange to be in a country that is not at war! I did not realize until I came here how deeply Canada is at war—how normal a condition war has come to be with us. It seems strange to go out—on the street or to some public place—and see no Khaki uniforms, no posters of appeal for recruits, no bulletin boards of war despatches. It all makes me feel that I ought to be back home in the thick of it. And we miss our Toronto papers so. The papers Angus takes are all Chicago papers. They give a few official reports-nothing else.”
(Rubio, 2016, pg. 242)
Montgomery provides a portrait of a woman who is emotionally connected to each and every battle, and the welfare of every soldier on the front. She experiences periods of great anxiety and depression.
Mixed with the challenges facing a mother with young children in rural Ontario at that time, some of the highs and lows in her career as a published author, and daily accounts of the weather, her journals give a blow-by-blow account of WWI. It’s a gift to anyone wishing to research the period.
Following the war, my Great-Aunt Frankie stepped back into the classroom as a teacher. Yet, like so many other women of the period, the war left an indelible impression. Fortunately for me, she went on to write about it in great detail after her 90th birthday. This week, I’ll be including all the many women who played their parts in Canada’s war efforts in my thoughts of gratitude and remembrance.