CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

It has to snow in time for Christmas in Wisconsin. It’s the law! And snow it did, & snow it does. Dry, blowing snow, dancing across streets & highways, swirling around stop signs & lamp posts. Heavy, wet snow, sticking to your mittens & catching in the neck of your jacket. Snow drifts, snow banks, snow plows, snow shovels, snow balls, snow forts, snow men, snow angels: you can’t have Christmas in Wisconsin without snow.

But when you get to your grandparents’ home, for Christmas, after driving 4 hours in the cold & snow, with only the sound of your own voice or that of your mother & younger sisters for company, you find that your grandmother smells just the same – White Lilac is her fragrance – & that your grandfather has lit a fire in the family room fireplace in anticipation of your arrival.

And your grandmother hasn’t forgotten to fill her cookie jar, the one with a chip on the rim, with homemade date-filled sugar cookies or her kitchen corner cupboard with homemade cinnamon rolls or her icebox freezer compartment with hand-packed peppermint ice cream. And in the back hall, where you leave your wet boots & mittens & hang your winter jacket, you spy the six-packs of Coke & 7-UP in glass bottles.

Your jolly aunt & uncle & their gang of boisterous & bawdy boys will arrive tomorrow, Christmas Eve Day, around 4 o’clock, depending on the condition of the roads, for dinner. As the eldest grandchild, you hope to be allowed to help set the dining room table with your grandmother’s linen tablecloth, sterling silver flatware, Noritake china & Imperial Glass goblets. The menu will feature a prime rib beef roast, but you, your sisters & your cousins will eat off of paper plates at the kids’ table in the family room. Later, they will play Monopoly or Checkers or Chess while you & your grandfather wash & dry the silver flatware, the china dishes & the glass goblets.

Until then, you make your way upstairs, stopping to admire the Christmas Tree, hung with bubble lights & frosted glass ornaments, in the living room & the upright piano in the front hall foyer, a Hymnal open to Mendelssohn’s “Hark! the herald angels sing”. You turn right, at the top of the stairs, into your aunt’s old bedroom, the walls & sloping ceiling covered in wallpaper ablaze with silver stars on a field of robin’s egg blue. The chest of drawers still guards a beaded Indian quiver & beaded Indian moccasins, given to your great-grandfather by the Lakota Sioux.

You lift the window an inch or two to admit a little cool night air & whisper your thanks for the gift of this place & these people. A hot-water bottle, wrapped in flannel, warms the sheets of your bed. You know you are safe. You know you are loved.

HER HANDS TO MINE

March 26, 1890: “Dear Ella… the log cabin I was going to send you I had to use some in the coldest weather so I do not feel like sending it but intend to piece you another that would please me better…”

Those words, written so long ago by my great-great-grandmother to her daughter, were made more meaningful when I received an amazing and generous gift from my sister, Jacqueline. I could not imagine what she might have sent, or why. Balancing the large white box on my lap, my eyes and fingers sought the contents. What I found – an antique quilt top entirely hand pieced in the Tumbling Block pattern – surprised and delighted me then and continues to fascinate and challenge me today.

The quilt top measures roughly 80″ by 90″ and is composed of over 600 diamond shaped pieces, no two of them alike. A friend more knowledgeable than I tells me it is a charm quilt. Possible the “queen” of scrap quilts, a charm quilt may also be known as a beggar quilt because the quilt maker collected scraps of fabric from family and friends to add to her own selection of different textiles.

Who was this quilt maker? Most likely, Elizabeth Ann Adams Terry Stevens Brown. Yes, she had three husbands! Born in Erie County, Pennsylvania in 1841 and married before the age of 20, Eliza Ann knew hardship and heartache, but she also knew how to help herself in the wake of abuse and neglect.

What Eliza did was turn her considerable skills at homemaking into a successful dressmaking business. In the 1880’s, Menomonie, Wisconsin was a prosperous lumber company town and during the more than five years Eliza lived there, she supported herself and her family by applying her expertise to the clothing needs of the community. Her youngest son remembered that prior to a big ball, his mother and her employees would turn out dazzling creations in bright colors.

You and I can imagine that Eliza’s scrap bag held a treasure-trove of textiles. If the Tumbling Block quilt top is any indication, she knew what to do with what she had. For the most part, she chose light colored fabrics with small or miniature prints – flowers, leaves, gingham checks or pin dots – for the top of each block and dark colored fabrics with larger patterns – paisleys, plaids, stripes or polka dots – for the sides. The contrast of light and dark colors and of delicate and bold patterns created a visually energetic and interesting design.

While examining the quilt top, my friend, the one more knowledgeable than I, was heard to murmur “indigo blue”, “double pink”, madder dyed”, “fugitive dye”, “conversation print”. For my part, I was delighted to discover one blue and white print celebrating America’s first one hundred years: “1776 – 1876 – Centennial”!

Eliza Ann gave up the dressmaking business when she moved to Colorado in 1887, leaving some of her household goods with Ella, then 22 years of age. The Tumbling Block quilt top may have been left behind, or Eliza may have pieced it in Colorado and sent it to Ella later. Whenever it was pieced and however it came to Ella, the quilt top remained in her care and in the care, years later, of her daughter, Louise.

I love this old quilt top. I love the artistry of the quilt maker who fearlessly juxtiposed a variety of patterns and colors. I admire the resourcefulness she demonstrated by sewing together two and sometimes three small scraps of fabric in order to have a piece big enough to use. And I am grateful for the stewardship of those who saved and cared for the quilt top, never suspecting that one day I would share some of its charms(excuse the pun!) with you.

I am indebted to my sister, Jacqueline, who received the Tumbling Block quilt top from Louise, our maternal grandmother, and who, knowing my passion for our family history and my appreciation of antique quilts, gave the quilt top to me. It is a tangible link and a tribute to an ancestor who left us a beautiful piece of her life to contemplate and to enjoy.

A LOVELY THING

“You said a lovely thing,” I said.

“Oh?” you said, one eyebrow raised.

A little laugh.

“What lovely thing? What lovely thing off the Lovely Thing List did I say?” you asked, both eyebrows raised.

Another little laugh.

“Yes” I said, “when I was fussing about our trip, about not knowing where we would stay, you said ‘We have our plane tickets and a rental car waiting for us, and we have each other.’”

I told you it was a lovely thing.

REMEMBER AND RENEW

One of the happiest memories I have is the excitement I felt as a freshman in college. I was excited about living away from home, about meeting new people & making new friends and, yes, about applying myself to the challenges & opportunities of college life.

That I was able to attend college at all is a wonder. It’s not that money was tight. It was practically non-existent. My mother could have kept me home, told me to get a job, but she didn’t. I think she undestood my love of learning, & I think she understood the value to my life of a college education.

Wherever I attended college, short of a convent but somewhere with a lot of supervision, I would need financial assistance. Lawrence provided that assistance in the form of scholarship, loan & work.

Lawrence took a chance on me, & I am the beneficiary. As a freshman, I was headstrong, immature & self-adsorbed. Lawrence widened my perspective & expanded my horizons. My professors, full of those special graces given to educators – enthusiasm & patience – encouraged me to learn for the sake of personal enrichment & to do it well. As a result, my liberal arts education became an education for life, for living.

When the time came for our sons to consider college, I hoped to show them that a liberal arts education at Lawrence gives you a chance to find something you love & that when you find your passion you are, as we say in the current vernacular, good to go!

Or, to borrow a slogan registered with The Greater Springfield, MA Convention & Visitors’ Bureau: ARRIVE CURIOUS, LEAVE INSPIRED.

I did!

WHY READ?

It was said of my mother, by her mother, that she could not walk through a room without stopping to read something. I’m like my mother in a lot of ways, & that is probably one of them, although in my case I would also want to straighten the row of books on the bookshelf!

Speaking of books: that’s why we’re here, right?

I’m frequently reminded of a line in the movie SHADOWLANDS, staring Anthony Hopkins as British author & Oxford University professor C. S. Lewis. In the movie, Lewis confronts a student he observed stealing a book from the University book store. In his defense, the student claims that at least the book he stole will be read & offers as an explination for his actions something his father used to say:”We read to know we’re not alone”.

I love that: We read to know we’re not alone.

You?

AT A LOSS

Ever been at a loss for words? For a time, I was. I know, I know: hard to believe.

Recently, a beloved family member underwent open heart surgery. The seriousness of her condition & the uncertainly of her future brought my language skills to a stand still.

I yearned to find just the right combination of words that might bring comfort & hope to my loved ones. In the meantime, I did a lot of laundry & swept the floor more times than it needed.

As though to compensate for something, I have borrowed 3 more books from the library, adding another pile to the several near my bedside. It’s as though I want to surround myself with words. Yes, I do!

And you?

THE ALPHABET PAYS OFF

One of my favorite cartoons features a little girl, sitting on the floor with a book in her lap. “Finally”, she says, “the alphabet is paying off.”

Out of the mouths of babes:)

According to the family archives, some of the first words I learned were the names of my favorite cowboys, Roy Rogers & Gene Autry. Well, of course!

Classic Comic Books were readily available at my grandfather’s drugstore &, for me, they were free! I loved helping the magazine man spread the new issues out on the display shelf.

The Public Library, a Carnegie Library, was just a block away, & I loved choosing new titles for myself, bringing them home & reading them, at leisure, for pleasure.

And you?

WORDS: YOU GOTTA LOVE ‘EM!

Words: you gotta love ‘em. Well, I do, especially the English ones. They’re one of my favorite food groups, right up there with butter, sugar & chocolate.

Do you remember the childhood rhyme, “Sticks & stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? Try as I might, that admonition never worked for me.

Then there was “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”. I heard that one a LOT from my mother. Gee, I wonder why?

Let me get this straight: I’m to not let other people’s unkind words affect me, AND I can’t say anything unkind to anyone else. Wow, that doesn’t seem fair!

Words hold a powerful attraction for me. You?