I brought the top to my grandmother. She would remember. “It was given to Annie,” she said, a 1930s-era barter for the medical services of my great-aunt. The quilter spent hours cutting tiny pieces and then handstitching them together. For the maker, the quilt was a means to health care during the parched days of the Depression.
Later that weekend my grandmother placed her meditations book into my hands. She pointed a shaky finger to the day's lesson: “Opening your heart and home to those in need.” Then she shared old stories of how abolitionists used quilt code to signal slaves. Quilts displayed ciphers hidden in the Log Cabin, Hourglass, Drunkard's Path and North Star patterns, among others. They were maps to freedom seen by all, understood by few. Quilts made with black cloth and featuring log cabins beckoned from clotheslines in front of houses that promised fugitive slaves warm meals, beds, safety and friendship. They meant home.
It dawned on me at that moment that every quilt is someone's story, a colorful history coded into a bright array of patchwork. The Depression quilt and the safe-haven quilts tell stories of survival. It was then I decided to make a quilt that told my grandmother's story. Hers is also a story of survival.
My grandmother spent her life caring for others. She made her home a welcoming haven. Family member, friend, neighbor and even stranger could count on a warm meal and bed at the farm. The Watkins man conveniently chose mealtimes to peddle his trove of spices, mixes and flavorings at the farm. And he was always given a place at the table. Even during the Depression, there was always an extra plate, though the homestead was not a place of wealth.
The family lived day to day, like most did, always dependent on the next rain for the crops to come in. In the Dust Bowl years, the children wore hand-me-down clothes from the neighbors and feed-sack creations. Grandma would remake the hand-me-downs, carefully pulling stitches at the seams and refitting the clothes to ever-growing children. My aunt Kathryn loved her Nutrena pellet food-sack coat. The orange of the feed sack washed out to leave a jaunty print behind, fitting for a young girl's wardrobe.
Grandma used every scrap of fabric and put away every piece of metal or paper for another time. Years of packratting resulted in closets and crawl spaces filled to the rafters with
Saturday Evening Posts,
vegetable remedies and bitters, and even wooden clogs, aprons and dresses from the Old Country. Farm animals had long abandoned outbuildings, crowded out by discarded furniture, broken down Fords and tractors, and even horse-drawn wagons. Hence each reunion was a virtual treasure hunt for antique goodies, as well as a nostalgic trip down memory lane for all sixty-four of my grandmother's descendants.
Unlike my ancestors, I don't depend on Grandma's farm for subsistence of body. For me it means a warm meal and safe bed for my soulâsubsistence of spirit.
I remember annual vacations at the farm. It was the most carefree time I have ever known. I ran wild with my cousins. We plucked mulberries from the trees, snuck into Grandpa's candy drawer and ate fresh-baked cinnamon rolls during the days. We climbed into the featherbeds upstairs and told ghost stories at night. Our parents reminisced in the kitchen below us, their laughter eventually lulling us to sleep.
I take my own family to the farm now. I spend the days making repairs, cooking, cleaning and occasionally short-sheeting a bed or two. My son runs with his cousins, experiencing the freedom of spirit that I still feel in this old house. I tuck him into bed, and it's my turn to laugh until midnight with my cousins, aunts and uncles in the kitchen.
I have more good memories of my time at the farm than from any other period of my life. It's there that I return my focus to living every moment, not worrying about tomorrow or next week. It's there that I find my peace and my soul. I find rejuvenation to go home, to create a story for myself that may end up on a quilt someday.
My grandmother created not just a house, but a homeâ a place of shelter for the body and spirit, not only for her children and grandchildren, but for neighbors and strangers alike. Her life was hard, backbreaking at times. But I do not have to ask her why she worked so hard. I can see why when she watches her great-grandchildren play at her feet. Her gentle smile and sparkling eyes are affirmation enough. This is the story her quilt tells.
Julie Dunbar
H
e gives not best who gives most; but he gives
most who gives best.
Arthur Warwick
No two words in the English language could send our household into more of a tizzy than those two words, “Sister said.” So when I announced shortly after Thanksgiving that the nuns at my elementary school said I was going to be one of the angels in the Christmas play, it set the wheels in motion for the most frenzied of activities. My grandma rummaged through a trunk of yard goods, looking for the whitest of white scraps, while my father measured me shoulder to shoulder, neckline to shoe top. My mother searched the drawers and cupboards for the little bit of gold ribbon Sister said we were to wear around our waists. My father outlined wings on huge pieces of cardboard, wings that Sister said were to measure fourteen inches long and ten inches wide at the center. My daily messages of “Sister said” brought occasional moans and groans from my dressmakers as plans were changed and sleeves had to cover our fingertips, not stop at the wrist as those on my robe did. Another day, Sister said the hem should be at least four inches deep and we should wear a pink slip under the robe, not a white one such as my grandma had just finished making.
When my brother Tom came home one night two weeks before Christmas and said that
his
Sister had said that our family had to come to the Scout meeting that night, my father groaned the loudest and said, “But tonight I'm supposed to cut out those wings because Sister said Jeanie had to hand them in tomorrow for inspection!”
“Now, Raymond, you know perfectly well that I can cut out those wings,” Grandma said. “You all go right ahead to that meeting, just like Sister said.”
“Well, I don't know,” my mother said. “You've been so tired lately. And you've taken that angel robe apart so many times the material is almost as worn as you.”
“I'll be just fine,” Grandma snapped. “Every stitch of the angel robe is made of love, and that's what keeps me going.”
For the next few days and nights, my parents were too caught up with the Scouts' Christmas program to help much with the creation of my angel robe, so when, late one Friday night, I said that Sister said the angels had to wear white shoes, my grandma promised, “We'll go right downtown tomorrow, Jeanie, just the two of us, and shop for those shoes. You parents have put enough wear and tear on their car for the time being.”
Even though my mother exclaimed that the real wear and tear was more apparent on my grandmother, Grandma Thomas would hear none of it. Once again, she recited her line about every stitch of that robe being made of love.
Eight days before the play, Sister said it would be nice if all the angels had curls in their hair the night of the play, but not
too
many curls. Out came Grandma's bag of rags and each night before bedtime, she rolled up my hair, practicing, hoping to find that fine line between curly and not
too
curly. She listened patiently, too, as I sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” a song Sister said we had to sing every night until we had the words down pat.
Each ensuing evening I had new and often contradictory tales of what Sister had said that day in regard to the angel robe. In their struggles to comply, my parents' nerves were often set on edge. Was it any wonder that when I came home four days before the play and tearfully said that Sister said I couldn't be an angel after all because I seemed too fat, my father thundered, “That does it! That does it! Too fat? Why, if you weighed an ounce less, you'd BE an angel, I fear. I do not
ever
want to hear âSister said' again in this house!”
“There must be some mistake,” Grandma Thomas said softly.
“No, no! I
know
that's what Sister said,” I cried.
“You march right up to Sister tomorrow, Jeanie,” my mother said, “and get this straightened out. I'm sure there is some mistake. You are not too fat and you never will be.”
“I can't do that,” I sobbed. “Sister
never
makes mistakes.”
“Perhaps if I went . . .” Grandma began, but my father said, “Absolutely not!”
“Jeanie must learn to stand on her own two feet,” my mother said. “After all the work, all the love you put into that robeâwhy, I am sure there has been a mistake.”
Thinking about all that love and how heartbroken my grandmother must have been kept me awake most of the night. The next morning I waited until the very last minute before leaving for school, hoping my grandmother would defy my parents and go with me. Or perhaps my father would not be as angry and would take matters into his own hands. Surely my mother would see I had not slept well. Maybe she would say, “You poor thing. You
must stay home today. I will go talk to Sister myself.”
But none of those dreams came true, and I ended up standing on my own two feet beside Sister's desk, asking, “Sister, why did you say I seemed too fat to be an angel?”
“Too fat!” Sister said, truly taken aback. “I never saidâ oh, I think I understand. Jeanie, I never said you seem too fat. I said you âsing too flat.' Besides, I want you to be the narrator. You have a good strong voice and read very well. Will you do that part for me?”
Sing too flat! Not seem too fat! And now I was going to be narrator! The narrator's part was the best of the whole play!
“Oh, Sister,” I said in a rush. “Oh, Sister, I'll do my very best. I'd much rather read than sing, you know.”
“Don't I know!” Sister teased kindly.
“But . . . but, Sister,” I asked, “What does the narrator wear?”
“Anything you want,” Sister said. “You must have a special outfit you want to wear. Think it over and tell me about it when school is out.”
I didn't need to think it over long, for school had barely begun when I knew the only outfit I wanted to wear. Now if only Sister would say yes, I prayed as the day dragged on.
When the bell rang at 3:30, I stood before Sister's desk once more.
“Have you decided on your outfit, Jeanie?” Sister asked as she straightened out her desktop.
“Yes, Sister, I have.”
“And what is it made of? Cotton? Rayon? Velvet?”
Cotton? Rayon? Velvet? I didn't know! I only knew one thing my outfit was made of. Would Sister understand?
I drew a deep breath before I poured out the story of my outfit. At the story's end, I said, “So you see, Sister, all I know is that every stitch of my outfit is made of love. SO will that be okay?”
Sister bent down, picked me up and hugged me close as she tenderly whispered her reply.
My father wasn't home yet, so I could safely say “Sister said” without listening to him groan. It's too bad he wasn't there, because he didn't hear me shout as I came in the front door, “Sister said I can wear the angel robe! Sister said it's made of exactly what Christmas is made of! Lots and lots of love!”
And you know Sister. Sister
never
made a mistake.
Jean Jeffrey Gietzen
E
very gift, though it may be small, is in reality
great if given with affection.
Peter Pindar
My eleventh birthday was just a week away when we arrived in the refugee camp on that bleak and cold November day in 1947. My grandparents, who were raising me, and I had fled our Soviet-occupied Hungary with only the clothes we were wearing. The refugee camp, called a displaced persons camp, was in Spittal, Austria.
To cold and hungry people like us, the refugee camp was a blessing. We were given our own space in a barrack, fed hot soup and given warm clothes, so we were grateful. But as for my upcoming birthday, I didn't even want to think about it. After all, we had left our country without any possessions or money. So I had decided to forget about birthday presents from then on.
My grandmother, the only mother I ever knew, had taken over my care when I was a baby because her only child, my mother, had died suddenly. Before the war intensified, my birthdays had been grand celebrations with many cousins in attendance and lots of gifts. The cake had always been a
dobosh torte,
which my grandmother prepared herself.
My eighth birthday was the last time I received a bought gift. Times were already hard, money was scarce and survival the utmost goal. But my grandmother had managed to buy me a book. It was a wonderful book, full of humor and adventure, and I loved it. In fact,
Cilike's
Adventures
had transported me many times, from the harshness of the real world of war and strife to a world of laughter and fun.
After that, birthday presents were usually crocheted or knitted items, made lovingly by my grandmotherâbut there was always a present. However, in the refugee camp, I was resigned to the inevitable.