Staff photo by Clay Schuldt Ellie Carlson gives a presentation on the Home Front during WWI. She spoke about the day to day life for the women back home while their sons were overseas fighting. War Bread: Carlson talked at length about the alternative recipes created to ration food resources. She even made bread from an old war-time recipe.

NEW ULM — Historical reenactor Ellie Carlson, fresh off her performance as Carry Nation at the B&L Bar, gave a presentation Thursday on the life on the Homefront during the First World War, called “A Hundred Years Ago on the Homefront: How Families Faced the War to End All Wars.”

Carlson gave the presentation in character as a mother waiting for her son to come home from the Great War. She shared the day to day sights, sounds, and tastes in the life of a Blue Star Mother during a time when Americans reluctantly, but energetically entered World War I.

Carlson said many American mothers believed their boys were safe from the war started in Europe. President Woodrow Wilson campaigned on the platform that the U.S. would remain out of the war, despite the efforts of foreign powers to bring the U.S. into the fighting.

Everything changed when England intercepted a telegraph communication from Germany to Mexico. Germany promised to give Mexico back territory lost to the United States when the war ended.

Once the United States entered the war in 1917, the home front began channeling everything possible into the war effort. Efforts were made to ration food. The government promoted Wheatless Sunday and Meatless Tuesday. Carlson gave examples of recipes that submitted certain resources, such as breads will less flour and butter substitutes. Not every recipe substitution was a success, but everyone strived to reduce waste.

Many of the replacements called for nuts as replacement ingredients since these were plentiful and cheap 100 years ago.

The government also pushed corn as replacement food since it was a local resource and plentiful. This is when corn syrup came into popularity as a sugar replacement.

Another way to help the war effort was to teach citizens to knit. People on the home front were knitting, not only to maintain their own clothing, but to make socks for the soldiers.

There was also a peach pit collection campaign throughout the war. Scientists discovered the pit of fruits was valuable as a charcoal filter in gas masks. Since the Germans were using mustard gas as a weapon, a steady supply of peach pits were a life saving donation to the Army.

At the end of the presentation, Carlson said she based a lot of the program around the family of her grandfather, who served during the war.

She said her grandfather lived to be 92 and was proud of his service in WWI, but remained a pacifist the rest of his life. During the Vietnam War, news of the war would move him to tears and he would say “There is no reason to go to war. There is another way.”

Carlson continues to do these programs in his honor.

Carlson will take part in another historical reenactment 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9 at Turner Hall. She will be playing the part of Carry Nation, the famous Temperance extremist.