As I mentioned last week, my wife has been a quilter for over 40 years. Recently while visiting my mother in the assisted living facility where she resides, one of her caregivers asked nonchalantly if we’d been on vacation recently. When I responded that my wife was a quilter and that we had recently attended QuiltCon 2005 in Phoenix, the woman’s eyes lit up and she became quite animated.
Her demeanor changed instantaneously, and she asked me if I had ever heard of Gee’s Bend? I responded that I had and, in fact had seen the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers exhibit years ago at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The caregiver, who last name was Pettway then proceeded to share with me that she was from Gee’s Bend and that her mother, grandmother, aunts and other relatives were all part of the legacy quilting community who have dominated that rural Alabama town for years.
As we surfed the internet on both of our phones for the next twenty minutes, what followed was a walk down memory lane where Ms. Pettway showed me pictures of her relatives and related her memories of growing up in the Gee’s Bend community.
As I walked away from this brief conversation, I reflected on how an off-hand reference to “quilting” unleashed a treasure trove of memories for this woman and gave me an insight into her background that I would have otherwise never have known about.