It wasn’t until I became a quilter full time that I found a more profound connection to writing: the sense of story. I am always drawn at quilt shows to the cards near the displayed quilts describing the how and why of the quilt. We all know the connection between the Underground Railroad and quilt squares. We savor the tales of the quilters of Gee’s Bend. We empathize with women settlers who used strips of whatever-was-left to sew distinctive, colorful string quilts. I just finished The Quilt that Walked to Golden by Sandra Dallas and Nanette Simonds which narrates the stories of women and their quilts in the mountain west.
It is this sense of the quilt’s story that brings me to a tale which began over forty years ago in the halls of Lakeview High School in Battle Creek, MI, where my friends and I used to pass notes and gossip, share good books and bad boyfriends, match plaids in Home Ec and tally joint adult injustices. After high school, as best friends often do, we drifted into separate lives usually connecting through Christmas cards.
In 1998 some of us sat together at our thirty-fifth high school reunion. We decided then and there that what we really wanted was to reconnect with all those special friends who were so much a part of our lives in the early Sixties. Thus in 2000 eight out of nine met at my second home on Old Mission Peninsula on the banks of Grand Traverse Bay and Lake Michigan. For three days we shared those life traumas we usually only heard about each December: divorces, spouse deaths, deaths of beloved children, life changing illnesses. We even named ourselves the Yeps.
Living in Arizona, Washington, Illinois and Michigan, we are now in constant, daily, email communication. Now we are there for each other, not only during the traumas life throws us, but for the daily joys life grants us. Discussing the bonus decades between the ages of 50-70 year olds we enjoy today, Abigail Trafford says in her book, My Time, “One of the hallmarks of My Time is the recovery of old friends. You go back to the past. This is a way to get started on refreshing your web of kinship.” (P. 167)
As we refreshed our friendships, the devastating cancer of a sister Yep, Betty Sue, brought us to the brink of total sorrow. Hearing about the comfort quilts bring, another Yep suggested we secretly make a Yep Quilt for Betty Sue. Each Yep designed a muslin square detailing some cheerful or significant aspect of Betty Sue’s life. Frantic emails whistled through the cyber waves as the non-sewers cried for suggestions and demanded sewing secrets. Finally finished, the squares were sent to me since, at that time, I was the only quilter in the group. I put them all together using for sashing, binding and borders a variety of purple fabric, one of Lakeview High School’s school colors.
We presented the quilt to Betty Sue at the beginning of our 40th Class Reunion the first weekend in August, 2003. By the last week of that same August, Betty Sue died. Our collective grief was numbing, but we were cheered and strengthened by the quilt story we shared with our dear friend-- a vision, gathering, exploring, refining, ripping and celebration.
