World War II Woman

Picking crops

Another person at my recent appearance shared the following World War II story.

She was a student at George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania during the war. Farm workers were in short supply. As you will recall, all available men were serving in the military, so the usual supply of hired hands, some permanent and some itinerant, was greatly reduced.

On occasions, George School students were loaded into busses and taken to King’s Farms in lower Bucks County. (These farms later became the Fairless Steel Works.) There the students picked the ripening crops, returning to school at the end of the day, tired but glad for a day’s reprieve from their studies.

In my book, We Knew We Were at War: Women Remember World War II, other women recall similar other experiences.

Jeanne attended Phoenixville High School in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Her school was on half-day sessions – the juniors and seniors attending in the morning and the freshmen and sophomores in the afternoon. This schedule left the juniors and seniors available for afternoon and evening work shifts; and freshmen and sophomores available in the morning for selected work opporunities. Many of the students found employment in the many defense factories in that area.

Jeanne and some of her friends who were sophomores found employment in the mornings at the nearby Kimberton Farms, a collection of seven farms each with a different purpose dedicated to organic or regenerative farming at a time when the trend was toward increased use of chemicals. There they cared for a large herb garden, cut up potatoes, making sure each piece had an eye, burned caterpillar tents in trees, and many other chores. The pay was thirty-five cents an hour.

And then there is Barb who lived in on a 235-acre farm in Buckingham, Pennsylvania where she cut asparagus, drove trucks for loading bales of hay and straw, sorted corn, and many other farm chores. Again, because of the severe shortage of farm workers, she and her high class were also tapped to pick apples.

Additionally, as a patriotic duty and in order to provide scarce produce, many Victory Gardens appeared in many backyards. Food was just one more weapon on the way to victory.

For more World War II stories, go to www.peggeorge.com.

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