More Info →Women in Wartime

Description

They formed groups such as the Patriotic Committee, who were active in providing servicemen serving overseas with Red Cross Parcels, containing clothes, food, and small sewing kits. The women were also the ones who sent letters to sons and relatives serving overseas.

The main, and indeed sometimes only, outlets for female patriotism were the traditional ones. Apart from the parcels, they organised most fund-raising, and knitted for the troops.

The women with men at war would have found little boy in keeping the home fires burning with little money or leisure for an indefinite time. Casualty lists formed a new cloud over their lives, waiting and wondering whether it was their husband or son whose name was present on the lists.

Mothers, sisters and sweethearts of soldiers, usually wanted all other mother's sons to share the same risk of injury or death. This could lead to bitterness between those whose son was at war and one whose son wasn't. An example of this is a West Coast widow with her only two sons at war faced a family over the road with all six sons at home.

The war also meant that women did a greater amount of work - they not only had to continue with their traditional jobs, they also often had-to help out to a large extent with the farmwork, and even getting jobs in the shops and post office to keep their family going.

Identification

Date

1989