|
I grew up wrapped in a quilt patched together from the
souls of dear sweet women. Women raised and canned their vegetables, washed the
clothes, milked the cows, churned the butter, picked cotton. They nursed their babies,
nurtured their children, sent their daughters off to college, a few of their sons off
to fight in wars and taught Sunday school. Most often their husbands were working from
sunup to sundown in the fields or gone for weeks at a time working offshore on oilrigs.
The responsibilities of the home were left to the women.
My great-grandmother’s hands were scarred and wrinkled.
She lived into her 90s and continued to work her soil and grow her peppers and tomatoes
up until she died. It is hard to remember any of the older women ever being completely
idle. In the evenings when they would sit down to catch their breath, they would
continue to work shelling peas, picking out pecans or quilting.
The quilts were made from scraps of material salvaged
from out-grown clothes. The faded sunset of denim blues, pinks and calicos would step
across in patterns of double wedding ring, flower garden, log cabin or often it would
let loose and dance to its own rhythm of the crazy quilt. These quilts were their art,
and they brought warmth and beauty into their often simple homes.
Their quilts have outlived many of them and still warm
the beds of my home at night.
I can mark the years of my life with which quilt I slept
under. Years ago my mother found an unfinished quilt top at an old woman’s yard sale.
The woman had been too feeble to finish it and my mother bought it. She finished the
piecing and paid to have it quilted by hand. The quilt was made up of beautiful bright
jewel tones. For years it was passed from bedroom to bedroom. When I left Texas, I
stuffed it into a pillow case and used it when I camped my way across the East Coast.
It is now worn and torn but once a year its brilliant color brightens the floor
underneath the Christmas tree.
The sweetest, most unexpected gift I was ever given was a
quilt from my great-aunt Sybil Stephens. In the wake of my father’s unexpected death,
it was pieced together by Sybil and her sister, Ned Rogers. It was a gift that
celebrated not only the memory of my father but also the birth of my new baby girl. I
wrapped my new baby and myself in it, finding within its cover warmth and security.
The quilt is large and simply made of colorful
interlocking chains. It covers my bed at night, and it lies folded neatly at the base
during the day. I have taught my oldest daughter her colors on its surface and have
turned it into a tent for my youngest, creating a stained glass effect of diffused
color and light. Sitting underneath it is a magical place where time stops and story
books are read.
My own two daughters were given beautiful, soft
embroidered quilts when they were born. They were made by my best friend’s mother — a
woman I have never met but who chose to recognize and honor her daughter’s friend. I
remember my friend stressing that the quilts were intended to be cuddled in, slept
under and played on. Both of my daughters sleep underneath their quilts each night.
Aunt Sybil died last week. Yet in my heart she, like my
father, lives on. The quilt she and her sister pieced together and quilted by hand
wraps me in the warmth of all the women who have loved, raised and befriended me.
Their simple functional creation is testimony of the generations of hard-working women
that knew the greatest gift is one from the heart.
Ellen Marcus is a freelance writer from Aberdeen.
February 11, 2004
©2004 The Pilot
Reprinted with permission from The Pilot
The online news source for Pinehurst, Southern Pines and the rest of North Carolina’s Sandhills.
www.theQuilterCommunity.com
|
