War on the Home Front: The Farm Diaries of Daniel MacMillan, 1914-1927

By Daniel MacMillan

Daniel MacMillan never saw the battlefields of Passchendaele or Vimy Ridge. A farmer in the tiny New Brunswick community of Williamsburg, he experienced the Great War entirely from the "home front." War on the Home Front: The Farm Diaries of Daniel MacMillan, 1914-1927 is a portrait of the other side of war from the perspective of a man who, like countless families across North America, had no choice but keep on going with his life as sons, nephews, brothers and fathers fought and died on battlefields worlds away.

As MacMillan's moving wartime diaries reveal, these years took a terrible toll on him, his family, his farm, and his community. A fascinating chronicle of wartime life, Daniel MacMillan expressed the fear, anxiety and uncertainty as well as the sense of duty and fortitude that characterized the war experience on an individual level, making the tragic four-year event much clearer in diary form than in second-hand reports.

His insider's account of supplying money, men, equipment, and especially food for the country and the troops documents the often unnoticed sacrifices of rural people in wartime and their post-war struggles to recover. The diary is also a testament to the loyalty of the people of Stanley parish, who mobilized the churches, women's groups and other institutions to provide aid to the troops overseas, the Red Cross and other war-related issues. A unique historical document, War on the Home Front encompasses entries written between 1914 and 1927 in which MacMillan describes the hardships of running a farm in the face of acute labour shortages and the anguish of losing friends and neighbours in battle.

War on the Home Front is Volume 7 in the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
• Release date: Sep 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9780864926074

Daniel MacMillan

Daniel MacMillan never saw the battlefields of Passchendaele or Vimy Ridge. A farmer in the tiny New Brunswick community of Williamsburg, he experienced the Great War entirely from the 'home front.' War on the Home Front: The Farm Diaries of Daniel MacMillan, 1914-1927 is a portrait of the other side of war from the perspective of a man who, like countless families across North America, had no choice but keep on going with his life as sons, nephews, brothers and fathers fought and died on battlefields worlds away. As MacMillan's moving wartime diaries reveal, these years took a terrible toll on him, his family, his farm, and his community.

Book preview

War on the Home Front

The Farm Diaries of Daniel MacMillan, 1914-1927

The New Brunswick Military Heritage Series, Volume 7

War on the Home Front

The FARM DIARIES of DANIEL MacMILLAN,

1914-1927

Edited by BILL PARENTEAU

and STEPHEN DUTCHER

Diary copyright © 2006 by Lorne Gallagher.

Introduction copyright © 2006 by Bill Parenteau and Stephen Dutcher.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). To contact Access Copyright, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call 1-800-893-5777.

Managing Editor: Brent Wilson

Cover illustrations: Front: (top) 6th Siege Battery bringing in German prisoners, October 1918 (NBM HWH F5-36); Haying, Kingsclear, early 1900s (PANB); Back: Canada Food Board poster (NBM). Cover and interior design by Julie Scriver.

Printed in Canada.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

MacMillan, Daniel

War on the home front: the farm diaries of Daniel MacMillan,

1914-1927 / Bill Parenteau, Stephen Dutcher, editors.

(New Brunswick military heritage series; v. 7)

Co-published by the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-86492-451-8

1. MacMillan, Daniel – Diaries. 2. Williamburg (N.B.) – History – 20th century.

3. World War, 1914-1918 – New Brunswick – Williamsburg. 4. Farmers – New Brunswick – Williamsburg – Diaries. 5. Williamsburg (N.B.) – Biography. I. Parenteau, Bill, 1959- II. Dutcher, Stephen Wayne,1959- III. New Brunswick Military Heritage Project. IV. Title. V. Series.

FC2499.W54W37 2006    971.5’5    C2006-900658-X

Goose Lane Editions acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and the New Brunswick Department of Wellness, Culture and Sport for its publishing activities.

Goose Lane Editions

Suite 330, 500 Beaverbrook Court

Fredericton, New Brunswick

CANADA E3B 5X4

www.gooselane.com

New Brunswick Military Heritage Project

The Brigadier Milton F. Gregg, VC,

Centre for the Study of War and Society

University of New Brunswick

PO Box 4400

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Canada E3B 5A3

www.unb.ca/nbmhp

This book is dedicated to our families,

who support all of our endeavours.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

A Great European War Has Broken Out

1914-1916

Chapter Two

Having a Difficult Time

1917-1918

Chapter Three

The Aftermath

1919-1927

Acknowledgements

Photo Credits

Selected Bibliography

Index

Daniel MacMillan (1863-1960). Courtesy of Marion Burnett

Introduction

On March 22, 1923, on his sixtieth birthday, Daniel MacMillan sat down in his family’s farmhouse in Williamsburg, York County, New Brunswick, to write in his diary as he had done faithfully for the past twelve years. Introspective by nature, MacMillan took this opportunity to reflect on his life. His thoughts floated back to the ambitions of his youth, when he dreamed of orchards I would plant, of the barns and stables I would build, of cows, of horses, sheep, pigs and poultry, I would have some day; of the new house, which we were then preparing to build, of ornamental and shade trees, I would plant about it, and the pretty lawn in front set with flowers; and then the roads I would have on the farm and the water system; and the neat clean stone milk house I’d often built, that would be such a delight to my mother. Many of these dreams of his youth had not been realized, a state of affairs that MacMillan painfully acknowledged. He had sold the farm to his brother Charles through the Soldiers Settlement Board a few years earlier, and it had fallen into disrepair. For his part, MacMillan had become a labourer in the forest industries around York County, returning to the farm as a boarder between jobs. I have landed thus far through without accomplishing very much as far as material success is concerned, he noted, and very little in any other respect. In fact a merely superficial review of my life would seem to indicate that it has been a complete failure. Although MacMillan did concede that he had some little to my credit after giving due consideration to a variety of circumstances, it was a bleak self-assessment for a man who lived to be ninety-seven years old and, in 1923, was regarded as a leader throughout the parish of Stanley. Chief among the mitigating circumstances, to which MacMillan only obliquely alluded, was the impact that the First World War had on him, his immediate family and his community.

The First World War is generally regarded as the defining moment in Canada’s coming of age as a modern nation. Justifiably, countless books have been written about the campaigns of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, the mobilization for war and the other political, military and economic implications of the Great War. But the war was about more than the heroism and tragedy of the great battles in Europe, the burning political issues it produced at home or the economic transformations that came into full view in its aftermath. It was about individuals making sacrifices and enduring hardships; it was about families experiencing the pride and, too often, the tragedy of sending their sons and daughters off to war; it was about villages and towns across Canada directing all of their energies into supporting a cause to which they were dedicated. These stories remain largely untold even though, in the 1910s, the family farm and small town life still dominated the lived experience of Canadians.

The Great War looked different from the countryside. The diaries of Daniel MacMillan provide a fascinating chronicle of what wartime life was like for ordinary people in the small, tightly knit communities that dotted the Canadian landscape. The diaries are a testament to the loyalty of the people of Stanley Parish, who mobilized the churches, women’s groups and other institutions to provide aid to the troops overseas, the Red Cross and other war-related causes. Daniel MacMillan’s account is also a poignant record of the trials and tribulations of his own family. Both his brother Charles and his nephew James, with whom he had a very close relationship, served in Europe and were forever changed by their experiences.

Most of all, these diaries are a portal into the mind of one man as he experienced a tragic four-year event that changed the lives of all Canadians. The fear, anxiety and uncertainty as well as the sense of duty and fortitude that characterized the war experience on an individual level come through more clearly in the diaries than they ever could in second-hand accounts. Daniel MacMillan’s sixtieth birthday assessment of his own life seems sad and unnecessary. He deserved to think much better of himself. Undoubtedly, the people of Stanley Parish who knew MacMillan would agree.

THE MacMILLANS OF STANLEY PARISH

The Parish of Stanley was the product of a land settlement scheme conceived by Thomas Baillie, the Commissioner of Crown Land and Surveyor-General for New Brunswick, in the early 1830s. Baillie and a number of prominent men in England formed the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company and obtained a Royal Charter in 1834. The company purchased a 589,000-acre tract in northern York County from the Crown with the intention of attracting British and Irish immigrants to settle the land; they planned to establish a series of communities that would prosper by exploiting the region’s natural resources. Stanley, named after Lord Stanley, the Colonial Secretary, began to be developed in 1834, and the first group of English immigrants, some sixty families, arrived in the late spring of 1836. Although the land company was a financial failure and never came close to carrying out its grandiose plans, it did initiate the long process of settling northern York County. Eventually, the Parish of Stanley grew to include the small communities of Stanley, Williamsburg, Tay Creek, Cross Creek and Maple Grove.

James and Margaret MacMillan (née Robertson), Daniel’s parents, were Scottish immigrants from the Isle of Arran in the Firth of Clyde who moved to Stanley shortly before Daniel was born. According to Daniel MacMillan, his father had taken two trips across the Atlantic, to the Caribbean and New England, before deciding to emigrate to the fledgling colony of New Brunswick. Daniel, the first of seven children, all boys, was born in Stanley on March 22, 1863. Around 1871, James and Margaret moved their family to the newly founded settlement of Williamsburg, where land was selling for one dollar per acre. Located several kilometres from the village of Stanley, the settlement was named after its original inhabitants, the Williams family, and came to be referred to as the Burg. Daniel MacMillan never married, which was somewhat unusual for men of his generation. At some point, probably around the turn of the century, he took over management of the farm and assumed responsibility for caring for his parents and his mentally disabled youngest