Canada Post honors young people who supported agricultural efforts during wartime

By David Hartwig

On Oct. 28 Canada Post continued its Remembrance Day series with two stamps honoring the young people who supported Canada’s agricultural efforts during World War I and World War II.

“Canada played a lead role in producing food for Britain and the Allied troops during both wars,” Canada Post said in a press release announcing the issue. “This was achieved with the help of different federal and provincial programs that recruited youth to work the farm fields at home after thousands of Canadian men left to serve in the battlefields of Europe.”

One design in the se-tenant (side-by-side) set of two nondenominated permanent-rate (currently 99¢) stamps shows four female members of the Farmerettes Brigade of the Ontario Farm Service Force taking a break from hoeing celery in Thedford, Ontario, in 1945. The other design features a group of boys in the Soldiers of the Soil initiative harvesting flax in a field near Willowdale, Ontario, around 1917.

During World War II, more than 20,000 girls participated in the Ontario Farm Service Force’s Farmerette Brigade, which was modeled after a program initiated during World War I to recruit high school girls to work on farms, orchards and canneries.

These workers, known as farmerettes, worked for up to 10 hours a day, Canada Post said, and paid for their room, board, clothing and personal items out of their hourly pay.

The Soldiers of the Soil initiative recruited more than 22,000 teenage Canadian boys to work on farms in 1918. “Participants planted, tended and harvested fruits and vegetables, helped with the haying and cared for livestock,” Canada Post said, and were honorably discharged and awarded a medal at the end of their term.

“This stamp issue reminds us of the enormous contributions made by ordinary Canadians who chose to give their all when their country called on them,” Canada Post said on its Perspectives blog. “It carries on a Canada Post tradition of recognizing the courage, service and sacrifice of Canadians who fought on the battlefield and those who served at home to support our military overseas.”

Ivan Novotny designed the stamps using an archival photograph of participants in the national Soldiers of the Soil initiative and a photograph taken by Mary Barnaby Fountain during her time as a member of the Farmerette Brigade.

Lowe-Martin printed the issue in a quantity of 150,000 booklets of 10 (Canada Post ordering number 414267111) and 15,000 panes of six (404267107).

The pane of six features three of each the two designs against a background showing a 1941 photograph of farmerettes in front of their tent in St. Catharines, Ontario, from the photo album of farmerette Barbara Murray.

Canada Post also created 10,000 first-day covers. Half of these FDCs are franked with the Farmerettes stamp (414267131) and canceled from St. Catharines, Ontario, which was where many farmerettes were posted in southern Ontario, Canada Post said. The background of the FDC shows a photograph from Murray’s album of farmerettes harvesting cabbage in Ontario’s Niagara region around 1941-42.

The remaining 5,000 FDCs are franked with the Soldiers of the Soil stamp (414268131). These FDCs show an image from the estate of G.S. “Gerry” Andrews of Andrews plowing a wheat field in Purves, Manitoba, in 1918. These FDCs are canceled in La Riviere, Manitoba, which was the closest post office to Andrews during his time in Purves. The pictorial postmark on both cancels shows hanging fruit.

The Farmerettes and Soldiers of the Soil stamps and FDCs are available online from Canada Post, and by mail order from Canada Post Customer Service, Box 90022, 2701 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, ON K1V 1J8 Canada; or by telephone from the United States or Canada at 800-565-4362, and from other countries at 902-863-6550.

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