The Friendship Quilt

I missed my Grandma lately, so much so that last week my ass even called her on my cell phone last weekend. Not sure how that happened, but I checked my phone and indeed, I had somehow dialed her number. Hmm…
Anyway, I did a bit of work in the morning, packed up and was out of the house by around 1 p.m. It takes awhile to get to Grand Forks, a whole 4 plus hours and it’s just not a fun drive. There are lots of wide open fields, tractors and machinery running hard as farmers dig up sugar beets for the harvest. I note there are lots of fields yet to be harvested, mostly soy beans. That is your up to the minute ag report. To the trained eye, it is quite beautiful; the horizon goes for miles and miles and miles. And, once you get on Highway 29, you can actually drive 80 legally. The speed limit being 75 and there are never any patrols on duty. Thus, I do lots of heavy footed driving. Like my sister says, "Oh, no officer....I can driver faster than that!"
I of course didn’t get there soon enough. It was 5:20 p.m. and Grandma was already in her robe. Apparently she gets her robe on before dinner. I am not sure why, but it might have to do with not getting her shirt dirty over dinner. Who knows? She's 96 she can do whatever she wants. Anyway, she’s upset that I am late. “Why did it take you so long? I’m going to go to bed soon.” She’s not mad upset, just wants to make the point that she was very excited to have me come and waited around all day. I get that.

I love my Grandma. But, she looks sad. She looks frail and thin. It seems this is what you look like in the mid 90s. You change again it seems, you lose strength… you become smaller, you begin to shrink again, you become more invisible. She doesn’t like being old. She doesn’t like not being able to do things that she used to. I think she’s getting pissed off about it.

After a while catching up she tells me Sandy mailed her Friendship Quilt to her. I never heard of this before, but Grandma assures me I'd seen it one time or another. Grandma had her friends from when she was on the farm design a quilt block with a design of their own and their names embroidered on them.

It is the most wonderful quilt I’ve ever seen. Mostly, it’s wonderful because the love and friendship these women showed Grandma by embroidering a block for her quilt is so tender. And it is even more tender given Grandma’s longevity today and that all of her friends are gone. “I don’t think any of them are alive anymore.”

I can only imagine how each block was delivered, was it over coffee? Did she invite her friends in and they talked about the block design, the meaning, why the choice of color, the flower? Did they deliver them on their way past the farm on the way to the fields? Did they bring them to a card game on a Friday night? These farm houses were not close to each other, but hundreds of acres apart and all the women worked the farms in some form.

It is obvious these blocks were done with love and care. There are seven vertical blocks and 5 horizontal and each one reflects the uniqueness of its creator. Most of the women signed their names in the way of the 50s, such as Mrs. Wm. Kosobud. She stitched her name in yellow thread on the lavender block with a design of a little girl in a floral print dress and a yellow bonnet, sleeves and shoes.
Rose Vasichek (not MRS this time) created a quilt flower…I am not a quilter, but I know it has a name. On a yellow block, the 15 or so pedals are each made up of a smaller floral print. The stitches making up her name and outlining the pedals are sewn in black.

Another block with a pastel orange fabric by Fran Vasicek has a flower with pedals in a matching orange floral print. Sylvia Kubat, the only one Grandma can’t remember, designed a yellow block with a child’s pedal toy fan in loud prints and again a black stitch outline. Helen Nelson, Mrs. Sylvester Gust. ( she must have ran out of black thread!) I assume it is Gustafson.

Mrs. Joe Charon. Her block was solid bluish green and the design had fabric with a basket of flowers made with fabric with a light background and bluish green and pink flowers. The floral basket was sewn onto the bluish green backing with four little flowers embroidered atop the basket.

Mrs. James Bina sewed together strips of fabric in pastel pinks, greens, yellows, oranges and purples. The stitches were in black thread and she stenciled her name in black on one of the strips.There is a pastel green block with ornate yellow rose in delicate appliqué, by Mrs. Chas L. Bina

And, finally the block of note: This was comical. Great Grandma Mary, chose her blue block to have a patriotic stark red white and blue American flag as the design. She signed it Mother Skalicky. Apparently Grandma Mary didn’t get the pink pastel theme memo...this is SO GRANDMA MARY!

This is a list of my grandmother’s friends were Mrs. Joe Charon, Mrs. James Bina, and Mrs. Joe Pic. Mrs. Joseph Vasechek, Mrs. Herman Pic, Mary Klug, Mrs. A Matejcek, Mrs. Clarence Miller, Mildren Kotaska, Lankin N. Dakota, Mrs. Edw. Matejcek, Margaret, Mother Trenda, Jean Skalicky, Mrs. Earnest Matejcek, Mrs. Alice Sticha, Grandma Sticha (Sticka), Minnie Janous, Mrs. Lawrence Bina, Christine Dvorak, Marvina Matejcek.

Grandma chose to use a bubble gum pink backing on her quilt. It’s the same color of the sweater I bought her a few Christmas’s ago. She liked the sweater the minute she opened it. I wasn’t there, but I know she liked it because it was a bit small on her and she wanted me to find her a bigger size. This was quite the feat, as I bought it at a boutique in a town that I seldom shop. But, for her, I would at least try to find the size. I went back, returned it for a bigger size and that size also didn’t suit her. She showed me. She liked the fact that it was long around her hips, but to button it made it too tight. I thought it so cute she really was concerned about the fit and look of her new sweater. So, back I went. It was March or April by now and the odds of them having a large size left were pretty slim. I asked the woman at the counter about it and said “My grandma likes it a lot, but needs it exchanged for a larger size.” She said to me, “You mean your mother?” I said proudly, “No, My grandmother. I still have a grandmother.”

Who gets to have a grandmother at my age? She wears the sweater a lot. It fits her fine in case you're worried.

I am not sure how old the quilt is, but it is at least 40 years old and it is still in great shape.

This quilt and the tender history touched me so. I could feel how much Grandma needed to have it around her. For me, I got a small glimpse into her life, extended family and friendships. As I had not been close to her in her early years, this is a side of her I never knew. I saw the hard working, servant woman whose devotion and love of Grandpa Clarence was undying. She cooked and cleaned and hauled grain and fed the men. She sewed dresses and coats for her granddaughters. I knew she and Grandpa treasured their friends when they were on the farm, but I never knew her to talk about them. I never knew her to talk much at all let alone to express what she thought about anything.

This quilt is her story and it is so important for her to have it with her in her last years. I can see the comfort it brings her. It is like having her heritage around her, to wrap around her shoulder when she’s feeling alone. She keeps it out where she can see it every day. It is draped on her chair in her bedroom.

I was touched as she told me about these friends, who they were, what relation they were to her. She is a woman of few words, so getting that out of her is good. She told me to use the quilt to sleep on tonight. I gently laid it out on her white floral couch, names and tenderly turned the blocks down. I slept wrapped in the arms and the loves of all her dearest friends.

It gave me the warmest feeling I’ve had in a long time.