Perched high on a deserted rise in a paddock far from anywhere, a rusted baby cot is exposed to the bitter Wheatbelt wind.

A monument to the Bell family of Koorda, this old cot is the last remaining evidence of a family and a farm destroyed by the events of 1939 -1945.

Any physical signs of the lifelong struggle of mother and daughter team Martha and Nancy Bell have long since been erased from this part of the eastern Wheatbelt, but for family members the wounds are still real and raw.

This Anzac Day, many farming families will remember not only those lost in battle but also the women and children left behind to pick up the pieces, and the lives changed forever by the atrocities of war.

Arriving from England after serving in the Great War, Harry Bell, his wife Martha and their two children, Tommy and Nancy, took over virgin bush east of Koorda to start a brave new farming life.

Dreams of wealth, space, warmth and happiness were quickly quashed, as the harsh reality of a life in the isolated eastern Wheatbelt took hold.

A hessian humpy was their castle, and dingoes their closest neighbours.

And despite early profitable signs, the Depression and a series of droughts meant farming life in the 1930s and 1940s was tough, with monthly bank repayments hanging over their heads.

When Harry, followed closely by eldest son Tommy, joined the war effort, Nancy and Martha, together with the now six other remaining children, were left to run the farm.

Nancy’s son Terry Patterson remembers a mother who did everything she could to keep the family and farm together during the war years.

He remembers a mother who late in life suffered terrible back pain because she had had to lift and carry bags of superphosphate during the war years while there were no men to assist on the farm.

“In the end, Martha and Nancy hired out the Italians from the prisoner of war camp in Koorda to help them put in the crop, but in the first few years it would have been very hard physical work for the women,” he said.

Mr Patterson also remembers a mother who was desperate to join the war effort herself, but was forced to leave the air service on compassionate grounds, to keep the family together when Martha broke her leg.

“Mum was stationed at the Cunderdin airfield during the war, and I remember her telling the story of meeting the decorated war ace and famous Melbourne footballer Bluey Truscott — that was certainly one of her highlights,” he said.

“You can imagine a girl from the back blocks of Koorda meeting a Battle of Britain war hero, she was very excited about it.”

But those special moments must have been few and fair between for Nancy and the women of rural WA, and it wasn’t long before her hero, Keith “Bluey” Truscott, at only 26 years of age, was killed in a flying incident near Exmouth.

Cunderdin airfield is also the site of the1945 Valentine’s Day Liberator air crash that killed five of the crew and left the remaining six injured.

The Liberator was attempting a last-ditch early morning air search for survivors from the torpedoing of the US Liberty ship SS Peter Sylvester” by the rogue German U-boat U-862 1320km off the coast of Fremantle.

But while the war effort raged, farming went on, and it was often the women who kept the businesses alive.

Mr Patterson said the Bell family had borrowed heavily during the early Depression years, but were rapidly losing the battle with the bank.

“My grandfather, Harry, who was also part of the 2/28 Battalion, or the Rats of Tobruk, was lost in the Australian attempt to cross the Busa River in New Guinea,” he said.

“But in all his letters back from the war prior to that, he urged Martha to try to hang onto the farm. He had cleared this property with an axe and he was desperate to come home to it.”

According to Mr Patterson, it wasn’t until son Tommy died towards the end of the war that Martha finally signed the papers over to the bank.

“She fought hard as hell to keep the farm because she hoped Harry would come back,” he said.

“But when Tommy died in the war she gave up, it broke her, she was a shattered woman.

“As I understand it, some banks wiped the farm debt when the solider died, on moral grounds, but not the WA Agricultural Bank.

“I believe those other banks did the right thing, these men fought for our country and for the family to then lose their farm, well, its seems like that bank was taking advantage of this indescribable situation.”

This tragic story of Martha and Nancy Bell could be the story of many farming families scattered right across WA agricultural regions during and after both world wars

“This isn’t just a story about my mother, this is about all the women who were forced to run farms during the war. They had to deal with banks and droughts, and then they would get the fateful telegram,” he said.

After the loss of the farm, the Bell family moved to Fremantle and all the children became wards of Legacy.

“There has been a lot bitterness in the family and for many years I couldn’t work it out. There have even been two suicides in the family,” Mr Patterson said.

“What this war took from our family was terrible.”

Mr Patterson has since been back to the original Bell farm east of Koorda.

He’s stood in the spot where the first house once was, and he’s touched the old cot that remains firmly in place as a reminder of what the war took from his family

“I’d like to put a sign up there, saying this is the site of a WWI and WWII veteran, this is a farm he cleared with his hands, and this is the price that he paid for serving his country,” he said.

“The current owner obviously recognises the significance of this site too – I can see the seeder and harvester has gone right by it, but has left it alone, and we are grateful for that.”