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Works by Marion Kelsey

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Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1912-09-18
Date of death
2000-01-11
Gender
female
Nationality
Canada
Places of residence
Great Britain
Occupations
memoirist
diarist
Women's Land Army
Short biography
Marion Kelsey, a young Canadian, traveled to England to be with her soldier husband Charles during World War II. She volunteered for the Women's Land Army and spent the next four years planting crops, milking cows, and driving a tractor. She kept a diary throughout, which was published in Canada in 1997 as Victory Harvest: Diary of a Canadian in the Women's Land Army, 1940-1944. The reader discovers, as Ms. Kelsey did, that agricultural work was vital to the overall war effort in Britain. Her observations ranged from descriptions of the bombing raids on civilian populations to more personal accounts of the difficulties of getting a hot bath. She and her husband were reunited on his quarterly leaves and Victory Harvest records their travels through much of England, Ireland, and Scotland amid air raids, bombings, and machine-gun fire, a unique travelogue of the period. Ms. Kelsey's service was cut short when her husband was seriously wounded by shrapnel at Falaise during the Battle of Normandy in 1944. Her indomitable character and enthusiasm shone through her writing and, as a woman and a Canadian, she provided a new perspective on the war.

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