A group of Australian women who served as Cheer-Up Girls during wartime did their best to cheer up the lives of thousands of returning soldiers, volunteering their time to support the war effort. They gathered in Cheer-Up Huts to feed the soldiers, dance, chat, and provide badly needed female company. It was a defining moment for some of the women part of the strong sense of community that pulled the nation together during war-time and it has led to life-long friendship.
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The South Australian Cheer-Up Society was founded by Alexandrina Seager. Its object was to support the soldiers in the First and Second World Wars as
well as to bring them into contact with the ’highest type of womanhood’. During world war one they visited the soldiers at
camp before they embarked for the trenches and provided them with supper, concerts and conversation. In the Second World War, they started a Cheer Up Hut near the
Adelaide Railway Station that had a hostel and a canteen for every day use and social functions. The hut was financed by donations from several charitable organizations including the Country Women’s Association. The society was publicly acknowledged as indicative of women’s capacity, support and patriotism.
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Alexandrine Seager, was born on 10 November 1870 at Ballarat, Victoria, On 16 June 1891 she married
Clarendon James Seager, a 34-year-old former British cavalry officer and insurance agent; they settled in
Adelaide in 1908. With six
young children, in 1909
Alexandra started a prosperous city business, the Scholastic Agency, which supplied governesses and servants to country people; it developed her entrepreneurial and organizational ability.
In November 1914, after visiting Morphettville
camp to see her son in the Australian Imperial Force, Mrs Seager appealed to South Australian women to support the war. Endorsed by (Sir) William Sowden, the Register's editor, she formed the Cheer-Up Society to provide 'general comfort, welfare, and entertainment' for soldiers. As organizer and secretary Mrs Seager deployed courage and tact in assembling women helpers of high moral character, most with relations serving overseas. They visited army camps and hospitals, befriended lonely recruits, arranged luncheons, concerts and spirited farewells; they sent comforts to the front, welcomed the wounded from Gallipoli, and encouraged recruiting and fund-raising. From 1915 the society offered refreshment and
recreation to soldiers in a large tent behind the
Adelaide Railway Station. This was replaced by the Cheer-Up Hut in nearby Elder Park (opened on 14 November) in which over 200,000 servicemen enjoyed cheap meals and free entertainment provided by helpers in gleaming, long white uniforms.
With three sons now in the A.I.F. and her husband a recruiting officer,
Alexandra Seager felt duty bound 'to make life brighter for the gallant men'. Besides recruiting lady volunteers, she co-ordinated the society's eighty country branches and its fund-raising, including the annual Violet Day Appeal (first held on 2 July 1915) which became a local remembrance day for the fallen. After the hut opened she worked full time with the movement, receiving a small stipend. Despite losing her youngest son George at Gallipoli, she spent long days at the hut and wrote stirring war verses which were published in pamphlets in 1915 and 1918 and sung at the front lines.
A petite, sweet-faced woman with blue eyes and great vivacity, Seager was loved by Australian servicemen; many of the
young saw her as a mother. Her almost moralistic concern for their
well-being led her at the end of 1915 to call the foundation meeting of the South Australian Returned Soldiers' Association; their first grant was £50 from Cheer-Up funds. Its first vice-president, she resigned in 1919 in favour of an ex-serviceman.
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After 1920 the society closed, Mrs Seager returning to her business; in the Depression she provided meals from a room behind the Cheer-Up Hut. Weakened by arthritis, she retired with her husband to their sons' soldier-settler property on
Kangaroo Island, where she wrote poetry and learned Italian. The Cheer-Up Society revived on a grander scale in 1939; Mrs Seager took no part in it. Predeceased by her husband, she died at
Kingscote on 12 March 1950 and was buried in the
cemetery there with Anglican rites; three daughters and two sons survived her. The Cheer-Up Society disbanded in 1964.
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