Where is the quilt?…..“Grandmother’s Flower Garden.” (photo posted at bottom right of blog.

Spending the weekend with Daddy and sleeping in the bed with Mother’s quilt at my feet.   I think I like the back side as much as the front side.  I truly appreciate pretty stitching but you will notice from the pictures included that it is a machine quilted quilt.   I can still hear Billie Crumly talking about just how the young folks would rush to have quilts machine quilted rather than taking their time and putting their work into quilting.  I have also heard her talk on numerous occasions that her hands just would not allow her to make quilting stitches like she once could.  It was not only her hands but her back and shoulder gave her a real time.  She told me, I think, that in her quilting prime and I don’t know exactly when that was but I think it was her last few years in Marietta, GA, and her early years here at Windy Knoll, that she could get eleven (11) stitches in one inch.  I have always marveled at that because she would put the needle into the quilt, batting and backing from the top and then push the needle with her thimble, which was worn on the tallest finger and somehow wiggle it up and down with that finger while using her left hand held below to know when the needle had come through the fabric and to turn it back toward the top.   I sure hope this makes sense because as I am talking I can envision her doing this. 

She loved her quilts and Beth and I have talked after we found out that Mother had died and she had taken us back to her quilt storage at separate times and pulled quilts out of the storage and point out that on the one special quilt she had pinned with a safety pin a sheet of paper.  Beth remembered it being a steno pad sheet of paper and I had remembered it being green.  Written on the paper in her hand and larger than normal letters were the words “Billie’s Casket”.  We were both given instructions that this quilt was to be used as a cover for her coffin.  Well you know how life goes and we just acknowledged to humor her but noted that we knew where it was stored and she had the note there and we would know what to do from there when the time arose.  Little did either of us realize that the time was fast approaching!

The quilt that covered Mrs. Crumly’s casket.

As you know mother passed away on June 22, 2014, and Beth had gone to Atlanta that weekend to handle some appointments which had to be taken care of before July 1 of that year.  We do what we must do and no one knew or stated that more than your friend, Billie Crumly.  So on Monday morning, daddy and I were at the home place and we started through the quilt storage and yes more than one place.  Would you believe that quilt was nowhere to be found.  I was in shock yet again.   When Beth arrived a few hours later, she and I once again went through every single quilt on the place and the quilt was not to be found.  Daddy, Mr. Practical, said that we would just have to make a decision as to which quilt we wanted to put on her casket.  Well, we set about choosing and I picked a couple that I liked and Beth picked a couple that she liked and we started narrowing from there and you can see her quilt draped coffin in this picture.  It was truly gorgeous and this quilt had special meaning because it killed her back and shoulders when she was quilting it.  My daughter, Kay, was living in Alabama at the time and Mother had told Kay that she would just quit because it was killing her to quilt it although she dearly loved it and had special friends had helped her lay out the colors in the quilt.  Her words returned to her quickly as Kay said, “But Mimi, you told me that our family was not quitters!”    With that said mother just took a little extra time to finish the quilt.  Oh the stories!  Seems as if everything in this house has a story and you have heard some of them.

How I cannot get the missing quilt out of my mind and every time I am in the house, it seems to come back more vividly.  I have discovered in my memory that Mother told me when she was showing me the quilt that the pattern was “Grandmother’s Flower Garden.”

Grandmothers-Flower-Garden.

This makes sense too because for the heading of this blog she has chosen the same pattern and I suspect the pictures were made from this very quilt.  I told Daddy just last night that I would always now believe that someone had been in this house and taken that quilt.   I would pray that God would make things so uncomfortable for all those who come in contact with that quilt that it would be returned to the rightful owners.   Silly though it may be, this too remains a part of country living.

Writer: Donna Harvey.