Ladies Auxiliary Club meeting records and financial statements.

Ladies Auxiliary

During the Great War, the women of the men serving with the 15th, 92nd and 134th Battalions formed auxiliaries. They had started simply. Some wives offered help to friends and neighbours with men overseas with the 48th. As they learned of others in need, or suffering from the loss of a loved one, they extended their efforts. No Highlander family was to be without a hand. As the group grew they organized as the Women’s Auxiliaries. For the men overseas they knitted and sewed and fund-raised and, with the 48th Chapter IODE, brought a touch of home to every Highlander in the trenches. Following the war, in the bleak days of the Depression, family helped family. Then, faced with another war, they worked tirelessly again.

In 1947, about a dozen of the ladies of the Auxiliary who also belonged to the IODE began to call their work group the Willing Workers. Two years later, they formalized their charter, elected Margaret Hobson as first President, and as the Ladies Auxiliary, became a member of the 48th Highlanders Association. They became the Willing Workers in name and in deeds. Monthly visits to Sunnybrook with “small comforts” for the veterans were interspersed with bingo parties and entertainment, for which they supplied luncheons of course. The Ladies continued to remember those on active service too. Since the last war, Highlanders in Korea, Germany and serving with Canada’s UN contingent have appreciated their thoughtful work.

“We are the wives, daughters, sisters, nieces and granddaughters of 48th Highlanders” is the family statement in the Auxiliary charter. Generations have been in the Auxiliary just as generations have been in the active regiment. The Ladies Auxiliary ceased its role in the early 2000s.