North tomorrow9:20The new film highlights the thousands of young women who served as farmers
The farms were tens of thousands of young Canadian women who learned to cultivate around World War II. Its history appears in a new film that opens in Sudbury. We listen to the producer and director of the film, and one of the women who was a farm.
Tens of thousands of young women from Ontario worked on farms during and after World War II as part of a little known government program.
Its history is now the theme of a new documentary, We lend a handthat opens Friday at the North Film Festival in Sudbury.
The film, directed by Colin Field, is immersed in the experiences of the farm, teenagers who assumed agricultural work to support Canada’s war effort by participating in the force of the Ontario Agricultural Service.
Since the early 1940s until the early 1950s, it is estimated that 40,000 young women worked in the fields, many from northern Ontario and urban areas without prior agricultural experience.
“It is a story that most people do not know in Ontario and are surprised to listen,” Field said.
“These women are now mainly in their 90. Two of them have more than 100. I found 20 of them and interviewed them in recent years.”
Field said his 50 -minute documentary explores how these young women became an essential part of the agricultural workforce during and after World War II.
“Many of them talked about how they had registered only for fun and to get away from their, you know, to their parents, and go and have an adventure,” Field explained.
“But really, while they were there, they appreciated the work and learned to work hard and had all these opportunities and this freedom to meet other young women of different religions, different provinces.”
‘It was a lot of hard work in the fields’
The inspiration for We lend a hand from Onion skins and peach fluff: memories of the Ontario farmsA co -author book by Bonnie Sitter and Shirleyan English.
English, an old farm, remembers having heard first about the program as a 16 -year -old girl who lives in North Bay in 1952.
“The people who were part of the provincial government came to the various schools, and had posters, things and things like that. So my girlfriend and I at that time decided that we would like to do it,” said English.
English explained that during the summer, girls had few job opportunities compared to boys. The care of children was essentially the only option available, and neither she nor her friend had aligned work.
“They were looking for girls who came to work, because all young people were preparing to register in the war, and some of them were already working on jobs like us,” he said.
The English said that after running, the government contacted them and offered to cover their travel expenses for the agricultural program, on the condition that they remain for 13 weeks. In return, they were exempt from writing final exams that year.
“Of course, that was a real appearance so that any girl outside her exams, that would be fabulous. So we registered, and we were already accepted early June, we got on the train and started,” he said.
“We should be recognized. ‘
The English recalled that after being accepted, he traveled by train to Toronto in early June. There, the provincial representatives, mostly women, welcomed the recruits and assigned them to the farms throughout Lambton County in southwest Ontario. The English was sent to the people of Thedford.
The accommodations were in bedroom style, which provided meals and bedrooms. Every morning, the girls were transported to their work sites in large trucks.
The English said they were assigned to two main crops: onions and mint. His work involved changing between hoeing onions and tending to the mint fields.
“It was a lot of hard work in the fields,” he recalled. “We did a lot of that in the hands and knees.”
English said he learned a lot about agriculture and called him a wonderful experience. She said it would have registered the following year if the program had not closed.
After the war, more than 157,000 refugees He arrived in Canada and the government helped integrate these newcomers into the agricultural communities, replacing adolescent farms.
“I learned a lot about agriculture, and I always think that experience led me to like gardening, plants and flowers and things like that,” said English.
He wants them to remember not only as a teenage agricultural worker, but as part of a generation of young women who took a step forward when their country needed them.
“The boys who were out of doing something, all were recognized … but there was nothing on farms. No one had heard of them, so we thought we should also be recognized,” he said.
We lend a hand It opens at the North Film Festival Junction on Friday afternoon.
