that ratty old quilt pt 1

I was in the kitchen packing a box with containers of green salad, baked potatoes, carrots, pot roast, and cheesecake for granddaughter Hayes Elizabeth to take back to the University. She was in the office upstairs, looking for an old textbook of mine, to use for research in a senior paper on health care. Her voice drifted down to me. “Gramma, who was Bettie Winkle?” “Bettie who?” I called back. “Bettie Winkle. Her name is on this ratty old quilt up here.” I put aside the storage bags and climbed the stairs, considering how best to frame an answer to her question. I knew exactly which ratty old quilt she was talking about. We had pulled it from the linen closet when we were cleaning out the house after Mom’s death. There were actually four quilts tucked at the back of the bottom shelf. One was done in perfectly horrendous dark solids and plaids and checks and florals, the sole touch of whimsy one tiny piece from a delicate balloon print. Fabrics from the time of The Great Depression were representative of the lack of everything including hope, and Depression-era families never threw away anything, so the explanation for the design was self-evident. Another quilt in soft greens and grays prominently displayed a regally beautiful Kwan Yin in the center square. My favorite was one with a red-white-and-blue star design that I today lovingly display in my bedroom. And then there was this one, in soft pinks and blues and yellows, stitched on a plain white backing. And even though it was literally falling to pieces, I simply could not bear to part with it. My HODAR had already learned (the hard way) not to question my choices on what to take away with us, and so simply added the quilts to the box of many-times-washed-to-the-point-of-being-threadbare linens nobody else wanted, a stack of stained hand-embroidered table cloths and napkins, knitted tea cozies, and crocheted fall-colored striped afghans. Mom had died three months earlier, but I was not willing to let her go. Hubby and I both knew it was not so much the articles I wanted to keep as the memories associated with each of them. And, yet, while this one particular pastel-hued quilt showed the most signs of wear, it was one I could not remember ever seeing used. Made of lightweight fabric, it was what Mom called a summer quilt, an aid to cut the chill of nights in the mountain region of Arkansas where she and her sister were born and raised. We had a coal furnace in the basement of our house in Birmingham, augmented by gas heaters in the common rooms. Not so lucky my northern cousins. The cooking fires burned brightly all day in that sprawling old farmhouse, but were banked at night, and no amount of socks or bricks or hot water bottles could completely remove the chill from our toes. I remembered one Christmas visit and a night so cold my four cousins and I actually burrowed between the goose feather mattresses in our efforts to keep warm.