With These Hands: A Journey of an Heirloom Quilt

Hand cut and sewn quilt cover

Cook Family, abt. 1900
Standing, L to R: Malinda (my grandmother), Emilia, Annis, Almon
Sitting, L to R: Caroline (Catherine), Saloma, Elizabeth, John

I never knew my maternal grandmother; she died before my parents married. My mother often talked of her.  As a little girl, I recall my mother mentioning in passing that the day was her mother's birthday.  Having no concept of the loss she felt, I asked if she missed her mother, to which she replied, 'yes, of course.'  When I asked what she was like, Mom replied that my grandmother was kind and very quiet.  I had no real concept of the woman my grandmother was.

Born in Dashwood, Ontario on 20 October 1881, Malinda was no stranger to hardship and loss, losing an infant brother, her mother and a sister before she reached the age of 20.  While mother, Catherine, had a reputation of being kind and loving, father John had just the opposite; my mother's journals express relief at never having known him, retelling numerous acts of cruelty meted out during uncontrolled bouts of rage.  About 1885, the family migrated to North Dakota, USA where the family went from farm to farm as a threshing crew, for which Malinda was the cook. 

Malinda & Charlie, with daughters
Vera, Mildred
and Gladys (my mother).

It was in this way that Malinda met my grandfather, Charlie. They married in April 1904 and together they had 6 boys and 4 girls.  Sadly, in November, 1916, while my grandfather was away working, baby Ronald succumbed to the red measles and pneumonia at 9 months of age; fortunately, the rest of the children not only survived but thrived under her care.   Even though there were times of great adversity, my grandparents made a happy life for their family.  

 Malinda was hard working and a talented seamstress, making all of the family's clothes and often outfits for children in the neighbourhood that were in need.  Like most women of that era, nothing went to waste.  When material was hard to come by, she sewed all manner of outfits from bleached flour sacks, until the late 1920's when mills began printing patterns as a marketing ploy.  She also made many quilts, using all the scrap material.

Huget Home in West Park, Red Deer, AB

Malinda and Charlie were well loved and respected throughout the community.  They worked hard but they also made time to play. They even made chores fun. Berry picking was turned into a competition and as good a reason as any for a picnic. Although there was never liquor in the house, the large family living room was always filled with friends and family. The Huget home was well loved by the children of West Park, where they came to play games, often staying overnight, sleeping 3 to a bed.

 My mother and grandmother, Gladys & Malinda,
abt. 1937

"Mom had a beautiful voice; she sang alto.  Many is the times the family stood around the piano and sang.  Dad sang tenor and was in a quartet and also a trio and they both sang in the Nazarene Church.  They did their practicing at our house as we were the only ones with a piano" (excerpt from Mom's journal).

Malinda, Gladys & Charlie Huget abt. 1942

My mother writes that her mother suffered a great many health problems and credits Malinda's strong faith in God for pulling her through many bouts of illness. The doctors gave up on her many times and she suffered numerous difficult births.  When my mother was born, in 1922, the neighbours took her in for an entire month because Malinda simply wasn't strong enough to care for her. 

My grandmother spent her last 2 1/2 years confined to bed, with my grandfather and mother as her caregivers.  While many young women may have resented that responsibility, my mother describes this time as being very precious.  

"We talked about things that she had never had time to do with the rest of the family and was more open than ever before.  Such a special time, most of it was after I came home from work [at the Peacock Inn] at one in the morning, 'till three in the morning.  She was in a lot of pain most of the time.  I would sit and knit and talk to keep her mind from her pain.  She left us so young, at 67. . . She had a very bad heart and had her leg amputated from a blood clot, was crippled with arthritis; her knuckles went inside of her hands so she couldn't bend them but she still always wanted to lie in bed and sew straps on things or buttons, etc. . . . When we were young, she made many quilts out of everything, even from overcoats. Also did a lot of crocheting and fancy work."

Malinda & Charlie abt. 1946

It was during these last years of her life that my grandmother made a quilt cover.  Done in the traditional wedding ring pattern, every stitch made by hand, it has occurred to me that she may well have meant it as a wedding gift for my parents.  We will never know for sure but the timing is right. Mom and Dad met at a New Year's Eve Dance on December 31, 1947.  They got engaged the following January and were married on July 20, 1949.  The closer it got to her wedding day, the more anxious my mother became; she had no idea how her father would manage to care, not only for his wife but for his 12-year-old daughter, also under Mom's care.  According to my mother, Malinda would pray to die, so that my mother would be released from her strong feelings of commitment and make her own life.  And so she did, on May 1, 1949, six short weeks before my parents married, Malinda slipped away.

Mom & Dad, with a lucky horseshoe
found on the sidewalk

My grandmother never finished the quilt but it remained a treasure for my mother, stored safely in her cedar chest, with aspirations of one day finishing it.  She eventually gifted it to me in the 1980s, in hopes that perhaps I would do something with it.  For a few years, it hung as it was, unfinished, over my own bed but it was eventually relegated to the dim recesses of a drawer.  Over the last several years, I have made feeble attempts at finding someone who might finish it.  There was a thought that in order to do it justice, the quilt should be hand stitched.  That raised concerns that the material, thread or both had decayed and the cover may be too fragile to work with.  While I never fully gave up hope, I wasn't terribly optimistic either.  The thought occurred to me more than once that my grandmother's handiwork was only steps away from the trash can because, after all, who wants an aging, unfinished quilt?

But, sometimes, things have a way of working themselves out. I saw a Facebook post from my old friend, Wanda, with whom I hadn't been in touch with for years.  Always a crafter and now part of a local quilting guild, she was showing off some of her latest achievements. My grandmother's quilt cover came to mind and I figured I had nothing to lose.  I sent off a photograph and inquired of my friend whether she could take on such a project. I told her the quilt's history, my attempts at having it completed, explaining that she was my last stop.  Almost immediately, I began receiving frantic messages beseeching me not to  throw it away.  Wanda was sure she could find a way to get the quilt finished and, if she couldn't, she would be honored to take ownership of the cover and love and cherish it.  A few short days later, she arrived at my doorstep to take the quilt into her care and see if she couldn't get it completed in one fashion or another.

Not everyone and, in fact, not a single person Wanda knew, had any desire to complete the quilt by hand.  Even machine stitching seemed overwhelming. Covers stitched by hand pose a significant challenge due to the inevitability that the cover did not lay flat. The fact that the pattern was entirely circular, pretty much guaranteed special skills would be needed to produce a respectable finished product.  When Wanda first threw out the idea of finishing the quilt to the women of her guild, custom long arm stitcher, Theresa, dismissed the notion outright. But the quilt was getting a life of it's own and the project stayed with her.  A certain video kept presenting itself to her; by the time she had watched it on three separate occasions, Theresa not only understood that she had applied and mastered all of the necessary skills over various projects, she also accepted that this task was truly intended for her.  

I thought I would simply hand over the quilt cover and voila! It would come back beautifully completed. Wanda had other ideas.  It wasn't long before she had me in a store spending a copious amount of time choosing just the right backing.  And who knew there are not only multiple types and weights of batting (what goes inside the quilt) but the option of mixing them as well?  Wanda and Theresa had their work cut out in bringing me up to speed.  Theresa would handle the quilting while Wanda addressed the binding. Wanda had emphasized the need to retain as much of the history of the quilt as we could. When Theresa showed me how she labelled her quilts, I knew that particular aspect was all mine.

Quilting complete

I wasn't far into my work on the label when I realized that it wasn't going to be small.  I sent it off to my nephew, a graphic designer, for his thoughts.  He suggested some ways to make it more visually pleasing without impacting the content.  Theresa found the first draft 'heart moving', which brought an unexpected emotional level to her work.  You see, she gained her love of quilting from her own mother who, in later years and due to arthritis, could no longer quilt. Theresa would take her projects to her mother and together, they would lay out the blocks. Her mother would share her wisdom and expertise on placement changes and, in that way, remained engaged in the artistic process. Theresa said she often imagined my grandmother's hands piecing the blocks together. I too have had many visions of gnarled fingers working the needle in and out of the material while my mother sat beside the bed, working on her own project.  When I received Wanda's teary-eyed response to my label, I knew I managed to capture my own sentiments as well.

It's funny how we often find our lives come full circle.  More than once, including just a few days ago, on Mother's Day, I was reminded of how very fortunate I am to have known my parents, adult to adult.  I remember so well the conversations I had with my dad when he was diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma and words cannot express how dear to me are the memories made during those last few years of my mother's life, after my dad passed away.  Not everyone gets that opportunity; not everyone recognizes and accepts the gift they are being offered.  As hard as some of those conversations were, every single one was a gift.  Just as my grandmother shared intimate thoughts with her daughter, so did my mother share with me.  In my mother's journal, she related those conversations as her mother finally having the time. I thought she meant her mother was too busy caring for the family to have those discussions. Today, I know it's less about being busy and more about the realization that, for each one of us, our days are numbered; if there is a message to share, the time is now. 

And so my grandmother's quilt cover has finally found it's way back into the light.  The final step was producing the label and stitching it on.  That was a job I delegated to myself, and Wanda was determined to supervise me just to make sure I didn't screw it up! While some might consider it a valued heirloom to be passed on to the next generation, I simply see it as a project that needed finishing.  On some level, I knew it would take me on a journey of research and remembrance, and it certainly did.  I revisited my maternal ancestry, not only through the pages of my mother's journal but in my own personal recollections.  Viewing those childhood memories through the lens of an adult who has now experienced similar loss, provides a new perspective, a deeper understanding. 

It has been suggested that, in order to best preserve the integrity of the quilt, it must be hand laundered and kept out of the light.  A dear cousin, a hand quilter herself, gave me a tidbit of advice. She made quilts for each of her four beds and loved nothing more than to walk by and admire them.  She suggested, if I didn't use it on my own bed, I should put it on a guest bed. . . and that's exactly where it went. She is absolutely right: I love looking at it.  I love admiring it. I love its reminder of every single step in it's journey from time-worn hands working time-worn materials to the contributions of old and new friends alike.  

After all, it's a labour of love and, without our memories, we have nothing.

Resources:
https://youtu.be/a-MdFDuTIws
https://www.facebook.com/threadedfinish