Canada Post recognizes 'Farmerettes' for WWII contribution

Isobel Gibson remembers the long, hard days picking vegetables and tending to crops when she was a Farmerette.

“We were just kids. I don't know how patriotic we were, but it was an adventure,” said the Seaforth grandmother.

During and after WWII, 20,000 Ontario girls between the ages of 16 to 18 were shipped off to farms, mainly near Niagara and Windsor, to help keep Ontario’s fruit and vegetable farms operating.

“I think people had forgotten that before you can fire bullets and drop bombs, you have to be fed. And our military and our allies in the United Kingdom and Europe were desperate for food,” said Farmerette researcher and author Bonnie Sitter.

From 1941-1952, Farmerettes kept Ontario farms operational and exporting food to the frontlines. Their story was largely untold, until Sitter, an Exeter native, started her research into the Farmerette’s.

Farmerette stamps on Oct. 30, 2024. (Scott Miller/CTV News London)

Thanks to her work, a book, a play, and now a stamp mark the Farmerette’s war contribution.

“If these girls had not stepped up to, you know, tend the fruits and the vegetables and harvest them, everything would have been rotting, right? And the food would have been lost. They did an important job and people have not stopped to thank them,” said Sitter.

Gibson said all the attention to her short but exciting Farmerette past is both humbling and rewarding.

Former Farmerette Isobel Gibson speaks with Bonnie Sitter on Oct. 30, 2024, who helped bring the Farmerette’s story back to the public light. (Scott Miller/CTV News London)

“Little did we realize that what we were doing was going to be so impressive years down the road. But yes, it's gratifying to be recognized after all this time,” she said.

A Farmerette’s documentary is yet to come from Sitter, who believes the Farmerette’s deserve as much credit as she can send their way.

“We have interviewed 20 women, mostly between the ages of 93 and 100. So we're capturing their faces and their voices and their memories. They're not going to be forgotten,” she said.