Month: November 2025
By Jazmine Aldrich
Coming on the heels of Remembrance Day, many of us have recently reflected on the sacrifices that our forebears made to build a more peaceful world. Both of my great-grandfathers served – one in the First World War and the other, in the Second World War. The stories of battles, trenches, bombings, and incredible loss of human life echo around the world in November. While our soldiers were on the front line, our homemakers were contributing to the war effort in their own ways – including through handicrafts such as sewing and knitting.
Thanks to the excellent work of Kevin Mancini and Anna-Karina Poronovich – the ETRC’s archives technicians who have been working on a digitization project since the autumn of 2024 – we now have hundreds of transcripts to accompany interviews which are part of the Ian Tait collection (P163). Many of these interviews were created by Ian Tait’s students at Champlain Regional College in Lennoxville, in the 1980s and 1990s. The students were tasked with interviewing senior citizens living in the Eastern Townships about their memories of the early 20th century, including the two World Wars.
On April 3, 1990, a student named Guylaine interviewed Beatrice Bouchard (née Bushnell). Beatrice was originally from Rock Island but was living in Sherbrooke at the time of the interview. When prompted by Guylaine about her mother’s involvement in WWII, Beatrice explained that “the government would furnish cloth and stuff and send it to where […] they had this meeting place and they would fix it up […] for overseas.” Beatrice went on to explain that “it was for mittens, knitted mittens, scarves for the men during the cold weather […].” Beyond scarves and mittens, Beatrice’s mother also taught the women that she worked with how to make quilts out of different pieces of cloth, donated by community members; once finished, the quilts would be sent overseas for the soldiers.
Thérèse Messier of Saint-Armand was also interviewed around the 1980s or 1990s in Bedford, recalling her own experience in wartime crafting. “I remember we used to have in wartime, even if we were working, […] we used to have to knit,” recalls Thérèse. She goes on to correct herself: “We didn’t have to, but we just used to join to knit for the soldiers.” Thérèse explains that the headquarters of these knitting efforts in her area were located in Philipsburg. The women knit mittens, stockings, and scarves for the soldiers with army green wool.
Originally from England, a Mrs. Bennett was interviewed by a student named Eric on April 6, 1991, in Lennoxville. She was also involved with wartime knitting efforts, making navy blue and army green sweaters, heavy socks, and other essentials for soldiers weathering the cold European winters. When asked by the interviewer where she learned to knit, she answered that “you learned some of it […] in school. And of course, your parents, my mother could do all these things. We were taught at home to do these things.”
Though undervalued, home front contributions also moved the needle in the two World Wars. Homemakers and youth saw it as one way that they could help the cause from across the globe. As Donna Murray put it in her 1990 interview, “everybody had to dig in.”
The ETRC is grateful to Library and Archives Canada for the financial assistance provided through the Documentary Heritage Communities Program (DHCP), which has allowed us to digitize, transcribe, and describe the interviews quoted in this article. If you are interested in learning more about Townships history, please contact the ETRC Archives.