Dad put his foot down. An elderly community member, Mrs. Wearin, had made this coverlet. I was going to keep my prize. (She and her husband had been my 4-H rock collecting club leaders.)
Cora Wearin, as a toddler, had traveled with her family to Oregon in a covered wagon. She grew up to travel by car along the new McKenzie Highway in front of her home and see airplanes fly overhead. A decade or two before her death, she watched men walk on the moon. She saw so much in her long life.
Her story connects me to a different era, to when people moved from place to place by foot or horse power or steam train. Practicality required every bit of usable fabric be turned into bed covers. Quilting was anything but a hobby.
Mrs. Wearin still made quilts by hand in the 1970s, when J.C. Penney sold bedding inexpensively. She must have done so out of enjoyment. I used the quilt for many years until it became threadbare. Now it hangs on a stand in our hallway.
I rarely think twice about hopping into my car to go to a quilt guild meeting or fabric store. I have the luxury of purchasing yardage strictly for quilt projects. No old scraps or well-used shirting for me. And some of my finished projects will never warm my bed. They may end up as wall art.
Sometimes when I walk by Mrs. Wearin's old pink quilt, now forty years old and well-worn in places, I remember the connection I have to her. Though she's gone now and our lives were very different, we are linked by community and beauty, practicality and skill. We both have been a part of creating with our hands and leaving something for generations to follow.
What's your quilt story?
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