MY GREATGRANDMOTHER'S QUILT

MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER'S QUILT

When I was five years old, I was sent to live with one of my aunts for a short period of time. It seems that the child next door in the duplex where we lived, had contracted whooping cough or some other contagious disease. My mother was expecting a new baby, my sister, Carolyn, and could not take the chance of my catching the child next door‘s disease.


At my Aunt Rose’s house, besides Aunt Rose and Uncle Sidney, my cousins, Sonny Boy, Wanda and Hugh, lived, my great grandmother ‘Mamu’. At that time she must have been about 98 years old. She was very, very old.
Mamu, as we all called her, was my grandfather, Edward Bryant Calhoun’s mother. She had reached an age where she tended to forget things, little things and big things. But of course, only being five years old, I did not understand this.


One day my Aunt Rose had to go out for a short while. She left me and Mamu along, together. She told me that I was in charge and she would not be gone long. Mamu went into the kitchen and using a spoon, got a spoon full of peanut butter. She did not offer me any and I am sure that I was pissed about that. When she finished eating the peanut butter off of the spoon, she opened the clean silverware drawer, and, to my absolute horror, put the, now dirty spoon, back into the drawer with all of the clean spoons.


I sprung into action, after all I was in charge. When she went back into her room for something, I quickly grabbed the key and locked her door from the outside, making her a prisoner in her own bedroom. When Aunt Rose finally came home, she had been detained longer than expected, she found me sitting at the kitchen table, key in hand, and Mamu “safely” locked in her room.


Aunt Rose scolded me roundly, although she was quite amused, I am sure. Mamu when released from her “prison” quickly forgot and forgave me for my deed.


Mamu, in her young life, had been a very courageous woman. She lost her husband, a sailing ship caption . He carried cotton to Galveston, Texas from Cameron, Louisiana on his ship. He was overwhelmed by his crew of men, who were like pirates. They beheaded him, as pirates tend to do, and threw him overboard. His body washed up on shore and Mamu was fetched to identify him. She did so by looking at his long slender fingers. Since that day, many of his descendents have been born with his long, slender fingers. They are a family characteristic
Besides being a sailboat caption, our great grandfather also was a farmer and Mamu continued in the only way of life she knew, farming. She raised several boys and several girls on that farm.


There was also a story about the family having a retail meat store in Lake Charles. The story continues that my grandfather went to the Junior collage there. I am not sure how this story fits into the picture, maybe someone else in the family might remember it.


In those days, it was not like it is today. There was no electricity, no TV, no video games, no computers. Any water they had came from either a well or from a cistern, a large container set up to catch water when it rained.
Times were hard in those days. We, today, all live in better conditions than even the richest people did in those days.


Like most women, Mamu made do with what she had. When a piece of clothing wore out, she could not go to the nearest Walmart or Target and buy a new dress or shirt. Instead, she sewed the needed garment, by hand, because few people had sewing machines. She made dresses and shirts and underware. When those dresses and shirts and underware wore out, she cut it into small pieces to make quilts to keep away the cold in the wintertime.
Many beautiful quilts were made. Women took pride in their quilt making. It was a form of artistic expression when no other form was available to them.


Mamu spent many hours working on her quilts, usually by candlelight or by coal oil lamps, because remember there was no electric lights. Even by the time I was young, in Johnsons Bayou, where I lived, part of the time, there was no electricity.


One of Mamu’s quilts survived. Somehow, it ended up in another of my aunt’s trunk. Aunt Nobia had been forced to “break up housekeeping” as they called it, when I was about eight. She put some of her things in a big trunk.
When I was nine, my family, which included, me, my mother, Edytha, my stepfather, L.K., my sister Carolyn and brother Kelly, moved back from Orange, Texas where L.K. had worked in the war factory during World War II. He had been a tool pusher, whatever that means. We moved into a house on Pitre Street in Sulphur, La. The house belonged to my Grandmother Calhoun and we lived there until I was grown and married.


At one time, Aunt Nobia’s son, Levert and his wife, Mary Katheryn had lived there with my grandmother. This is how Aunt Nobia’s trunk had ended up there, I suppose, although I do not know for sure


Anyway out in the outside building which contained a washroom, a garage and a chicken house, sat this old, big trunk.


As a kid, I was fascinated by the trunk, having read stories about trunks and treasures and all of that stuff. The trunk was not locked and so occasionally, I would crack the top and peek at the contents.
On the very top lay a beautiful quilt top. It was small, about the size you would need to make a baby’s crib quilt. Made up of two inch hexagons, all hand stitched together. There was every color under the sun and every pattern also, red hexagons with white spots, blue striped hexagons, black hexagons with yellow flowers, you name it, and there it was. I guess I had an artist eye, even then, thought I was not aware. I was entranced with this quilt top.
It was not yet a quilt and had a long way to go before it became a quilt, but I did not yet know that.


After some years, Aunt Nobia became settled again and was able to reclaim her trunk. I confessed to her that I had peeked into the trunk and how beautiful the quilt top was. She told me that Mamu had made it and she said that I could have it.


The quilt went into my “hope chest” and remained there for many years. I would take it out and look at it and spread it out on my bed. But, alas it was too small to be a bed cover so back into the cedar chest it would go.


When Elbert and I built the house on Lake Street in Lake Charles, La, I pulled the quilt top out and lay it on the bed. Again, I expressed the thought that, if only it were bigger it would make a fine bedcover.
Elbert said that we could fix that. He knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who would quilt a top into a bedcover. We contacted her and she agreed to expand the quilt top onto a larger background. She then proceeded to do just that.
After she expanded it she then quilted it to the pattern, which means that she followed the hexagon pattern and sewed only on the seams. When she finished, it was indeed a fine work of art.


We had her make us several other quilts including one for my son Steven who is very fond of quilts.


We left Louisiana and came to California in 1984. With us came the quilt. We used it on our beds in all of the different places that we lived. With time, it began to show some wear. It needed to go up on the wall, where it could be seen, but not subjected to the wear and tear of everyday use. After all, it had started out as garmets in the 1870’s and that is a long time for a piece of fabric to survive.


Alas, we had no wall space. We are artist, remember, and every inch of our walls were and are always covered with our own art.


My youngest daughter, Linda, had professed an interest in the quilt, so I shipped it to her about eight years ago. When she received it, she called me to be sure that I did not have something dreadfully wrong with me. She was sure that I would only give up the quilt if my demise was imminent. I assured her that was not the case, that I was healthy, but could no longer care for the quilt that Mamu had made and that I felt she would give it a good home
Yesterday, she told me about the quilts new place of honor.


In Ouray, Colorado, she and Carl are restoring a house that will become their summer home. The guest bedroom has been chosen for the place for Mamu’s quilt. It will hang on the wall, in a place of honor, a piece of art, which has found it’s proper place.


Mamu would be very proud.



By Shirley Jean Tracy Price
April 5, 2008


Update, August 12, 2011:  Linda's house in Ouray was completed and the quilt was hung in a place of honor along with a painting that I did that was inspired by the quilt.