04-07 The Women’s Land Army

"Where are you going, Mom?" "To lead an exercise class for the Land Girls", she replied. It is 1941, and I am eight years old. Mother was wearing black tights and a sweat suit and heading off to the gymnasium at the local public school. She led a class of about 75 girls who were strengthening themselves to work on farms, replacing men that had gone to fight in Europe.
The Women's Land Army was started in Britain in WW1 when 3 million men went to war, leaving the farms desperately short of labour. The second ad is one from Britain at the time. The idea was copied in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and America.
”Why don’t they just eat spinach like Popeye?", I asked. Mother said as a boy I was always asking questions, and I remember her taking lots of time to give me all the details. She tried to explain that although all of her ladies were from the country, and were healthy and ate lots of fresh vegetables, weeding gardens and picking fruit eight hours a day was tough work.
"Why don't they do exercises at home each day like you?” Anybody with a kid that never stops? Mother said they liked talking more than exercising. The officials made tea, and the girls brought sweet loaves and cookies. For at least an hour, they would talk about their husbands and where they were all stationed. Some were already widows.
My strongest memory of WW2 was my sense of pride that both mother and dad were working in the war effort. Dad made officers' uniforms, and mother worked in the Women's Land Army. And mother was doing just what her father did in WW1 when he was a physical education instructor.
Few of the family knew just how strong mother was, but I have a memory of mother leaving a grocery store when Robert was only three, with parcels in both arms. Robert started choking. Mother instantly dropped the two bags of groceries and lifted Robert off the ground with one hand and whacked him on the back with the other. Something flew about six feet out of his mouth. I ran and picked up a penny. "Mom, can I keep the penny?"