Dear Hope and Readers: The letter from "Proverb" of Kansas started me thinking, which had a drastic result, as you will see. Hope, I got all these sayings out of my head! Please use the best, and thanks for printing what you can. I never knew I had such things in my head till I got to thinking. I am an old-timer and remember back to the Gay Nineties, although I am not one of them (younger by 16 to 20 years). I have intended to write for years but needed an incentive to start me, which "Proverb" of Kansas furnished.
I think of you often and hope you are OK and adjusted to your loss. I am a widow of 10 years. I had to realize; I was completely played out running a large farm business, mostly on my own, and health gone. I am living in a nice home in town now but have as my long-time friend this paper every day. I live alone, and make out. The health is the big problem. I often think of your quilts and wonder how you came out with them. I will always love your Household, and this whole paper. -- Sand Cherry of Nebraska Sand Hills.
Before we start on your list of sayings and proverbs, we'll take a little space to report about the quilts. They are all done -- and there were five of them, each one prettier than the other. Each is finished in a different color; they are pink, peach, yellow, blue and green.
Every block that arrived was used, even though some were different sizes and types than were stipulated in the original instructions. There were enough blocks with white background to make one whole quilt; the other four are on unbleached muslin backgrounds. With every block different, it is amazing how beautifully the quilters fitted them all together in harmony.
On the back of one quilt are the names and addresses of all those who contributed toward the expense of finishing instead of making blocks. Whether satisfactory pictures can be made of the quilts we don't know yet. To show up well, they would need to be in color and that would be expensive and impossible to print in the paper. But possibly if we can get good color pictures, we might be able to have them enlarged and display a set at the International or at some of the big fairs. To display the quilts themselves would be more satisfactory, but what a lot of room that would take!
These quilts are more deeply appreciated than words can express. They will be a comfort and a treasure always. They would be that just as objects of art, but think how much more is involved when every block is a distinctive personality, reminding me of our mutual interests through the years, our discussions (disagreements as well as agreements), our exchanges of helps and ideas, our families with all the problems of child training and sewing and mending and cooking and making ends meet, our community activities and keeping up with changing times. So few of us have actually met one another, or even seen one another's photographs, yet how intimately our lives have intertwined.
I thank you all, from my heart, and hope that many of you will get to see the quilts. But if you never do, you can still see them in your mind's eye, the only way in which most of us know each other. Maybe the quilts and we ourselves show up better that way. -- Hope.
Memory Gem
Old gardeners never die, they just spade away.