Stitched with Love - Two Legacies

 

Last week, my little community lost a special man.  David was one of those light-bearers, someone who not only was dedicated to family and friends, but who also worked tirelessly in the community at large.  He was my co-worker for around 30 years, not only at the library, but also in several community organizations and projects.  I hired him the day after he graduated from high school and, when I retired, he eventually took over my job as library director.  Just over a year ago, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and although he fought it to the end, he lost his battle.  The miracle he hoped for didn’t happen in the way he believed it would, but the actual miracle was that he was able to stay at home in relative comfort, visiting with, making peace with, and loving his family and friends right up to the end of a life well lived.

Several years ago, David had surgery and was laid low for a few weeks at the end of December. Anyone who knew him knows that sitting around doing nothing was not in his DNA.  So he decided to make a quilt.  Not only was he going to make a quilt; he was going to teach his young nieces, nephews and cousins how to make a quilt.  This trait is why I put him in charge of the Summer Reading Program at the library.  I didn’t have it in me to deal with hordes of small children three times a week, and I certainly would not have entertained the idea of making a quilt with children.  David would and did.  He also, as part of the summer program at the library, had the children make a quilt top featuring the theme of the summer program for that year.  I may not have done everything right during my years at the library, but I hired the right person as my assistant!

David learned to quilt from his grandmother, Gertrude.  I knew Gertrude, and the rest of the family, well from the earliest time I can remember.  She and her husband, Bud, worked for our family since my daddy was born; he on the farm and she in the house.  I played with all her grandchildren when I was little and our families were inextricably intertwined. One of the main things I remember about Bud was that he always plowed our garden with his mule.  All the other plowing was done with the tractor, but my folks believed a mule did a better job with a garden.   I remember much more about David’s grandmother. 

I used to watch her wash clothes in the basement with the wringer washer.  I yearned to put the clothes through the wringer.  It was just fascinating to me, for some reason.  I don’t know why, because I had very little interest in any other household chores and was usually busy with my pony or the dogs or playing in the branch down in the holler.   But I really wanted to run stuff through that wringer.  She wouldn’t let me – I’m sure she had strict instructions not to let me do that.  My mom had a friend when she was young who got her arm caught in a wringer and I grew up hearing stories of that happening to careless children.  Sometimes she would put her big brown hand over my little hands and let me “help” guide the clothes through.  I can still see it in my mind and I can remember the clean clothes smell from the tub.  I also remember watching her iron clothes.  I don’t recall that I ever had any desire to help with that, nor did I try to help make cracklings during hog killing time.  I did love to eat the cracklings fresh out of the boiling grease until one day when I overdid it and got sick.  I haven’t eaten a crackling since then.  She made the absolute best green tomato relish and my mom said she made the best souse meat, although that was something I was never willing to even try.  It can be said that if not for her, I would not be here.  My daddy was born prematurely, at home, and my grandmother was in a bad way.  According to family lore, they laid the baby aside, thinking he was dead, but Gertrude wrapped him up and put him in a shoe box by the fireplace and saved his life.

But back to David’s quilt.  His grandmother made many quilts, but she also left a lot of unfinished projects when she died, including stashes of fabric.  So, David gathered up a lot of fabric, much of which came from remnants of clothing he and his family wore as children, and set the young people to work cutting out tiny rectangles to piece together.  They matched up the colors to make a pattern, and I can just hear David telling them what needed to go where.  Then they sewed the tiny pieces together, by hand.  I could fly to the moon easier than I could hand piece a quilt, but somehow David made it work.  He may be the only person who could have persuaded these kids to do something like this. 

After the quilt top was finished, he enlisted a fellow member of the local quilt guild to do the quilting.  I’m surprised he didn’t enlist the kids to do the quilting by hand too, but I guess he thought that was a bridge too far.  So his friend Kathy used her long arm machine to do the quilting.  The back of the quilt is just as much a work of art as the front; each child’s name is stitched into the needlework pattern and their great-grandmother’s name is inscribed in the center with her birth and death dates.  When David showed it to me and our other co-workers, it took my breath away.  What a labor of love and a special keepsake for the family.  He called the quilt "Gertrude's Legacy" - it's as much "David's Legacy" now.

In 2020, the quilt was entered in the annual quilt show and was chosen to be on the cover of the book commemorating the show.  When David became so ill he could no longer work on his unfinished projects, I helped get the quilt books ready for publication.  Happily, I got the proof for the cover of the book shortly before he passed away.  One of the last times I visited him, I took a copy of the cover for him to see and, lo and behold, he was using that very same quilt as a coverlet that day.  We talked a little about the book and a little about the library and some of our adventures there.  “We did good work,” I told him.  He nodded.  At his funeral just a week later, one of the verses that was read was from Matthew.   “Well done, good and faithful servant,” the minister said.  I can’t think of anyone more deserving of those words.