In early 1933 my grandmother, Wilma Butler Hasty, realized she was pregnant, for the third time. She and Papaw had two boys, Bobby Jr. and Don, and finally it was time [she hoped] for a girl. She had been married nearly ten years.
Mamaw, Papaw, Bobby and Don, before Elva was born
In 1933, the Depression was in full swing, and times were very hard.
My grandfather was playing for whatever minor league team he could, including for a while the Atlanta Crackers, but many of the minor league teams were going under. Folks without jobs couldn't afford to go to a baseball game.
above, Bobby Jr., Mamaw and little Elva, around 1935
In anticipation of having a girl, Mamaw started a quilt, probably in early 1933. She did it in pink and blue, just in case. The pattern is called a wedding ring or double wedding ring [you can tell I know very little about quilts].
After Mom was born in December 1933, Mamaw brought her home and the next several weeks were chaotic. Mom was a newborn, and Bobby and Don had whooping cough. So Mom stayed downstairs with Mamaw and the boys were sick upstairs and Papaw tended to them. They couldn't let them around the new baby.
That was in the days before whooping cough vaccine.
Mamaw put away the beautiful quilt top she had made for baby Elva. For years, it languished in a box in the closet, moved from house to house, but not finished. There was no back on it.
I don't blame Mamaw for not finishing the quilt. She had to get through the Depression, then World War II, seeing her sons off to war, putting kids through school, working, taking care of Papaw, etc. Life was BUSY.
Mamaw loved to sew. She sewed dresses for herself and her little girl. She sewed all my school dresses for years. She sewed for her sisters sometimes. She made clothes for my Barbie dolls.
She tried to teach her daughter to sew but that didn't go so well. Mom didn't inherit the sewing genes..
Michael holding the quilt top I discovered in a closet
About 2 years ago, I found the quilt top she had made [see above].It was in very good shape for being 81 years old. I pondered what to do.
Not many folks can say they have a hand-stitched wedding ring quilt made during the Depression. It's a treasure.
I am not a quilter. I can sew on buttons and do basic hems, but that's it. Mamaw tried to teach me to sew, and I could make simple clothes when I was a teenager, but they never looked exactly right so finally I gave up.
My very talented cousin Pat [a Thompson cousin, Dad's side of the family] is a quilter. She made me the beautiful Crab Chronicles quilt, below, that I treasure.
I sent her a photo of the quilt that Mamaw had started in 1932, and asked her if she thought it would be possible to finish it, all these years later. She said send it on -- she lives in Summerville SC. I sent it, and she finished it for us -- an incredibly kind and generous thing to do. Pat is a busy lady who keeps her pre-school grandchildren.**
So Mamaw, up in heaven now, finally has a finished quilt to wrap her "baby" in, after 82 years.
Mom cried when Pat gave it to her this morning.
What an incredible gift. What a blessing to have such wonderful folks in our family.
**Mother has always felt a special kinship with Pat and her sisters because when Papaw was managing and playing for the Cordele Reds in the late 1930's Fleeta [Pat's mother] used to babysit Mother. Fleeta was a young woman and Mom was a toddler. Mom's family lived in a boardinghouse in Cordele that summer. Little did they know that one day Mother would grow up and marry Fleeta's cousin Tony Thompson! Fleeta's husband Woody Hargrove played baseball for Papaw that summer and was very fond of him.