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Where did I come from?
It is not possible that I descended from pioneer stock.
I love warm water and central heating and carpeted floors.
I carry in my heart that enduring love of making quilts.
I am here.
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Mama, Where Did I Come From?
By Helen Kelley
Did a Good Fairy hide me under a cabbage leaf? Did I spring, like Aphrodite, from a seashell? Was I left behind after an alien visit? Did I arrive safely cradled in a doctor's black bag? Certainly, it is not possible that I could ever have descended, like many Americans and much of the world, from pioneer stock. I am not rugged and forbearing.
I watch in amazement when cavorting children leap, laughing, from docks or rocks to swim in icy waters. Cold water appalls me. On TV shows, we see people coming down from Mt. Everest exhilarated from the challenge of conquering great rocks and enormous heights. Dashing my body against craggy landscapes is not my idea of fun. Marathon runners propel themselves along exhausting racecourses, running and testing themselves and their endurance. There seems to be a large part of the world that is invigorated by the challenge of a survival experience.
I love warm water and central heating and carpeted floors under my bare feet. My car is equipped with air-conditioning and heat control and comfortable seats. My workroom has electric lights that flick on with a switch and turn my nighttime surroundings into a world of brilliant sunlight. For all of these things, I am grateful. All of these things I cherish.
Bill recently dropped a magazine into my lap. "I thought you might be interested in this, " he said. He pointed to a review of a book, a discussion of the myth about the pleasures of early American domesticity, the laughter of frontier social gatherings, and the delights of being courted by rough-and-ready pioneer men. Lovely stories have been woven around those times when women survived cold water, candlelight, and a life of sickness, with meager food, a lack of fuel, and body-bruising work.
The review discussed the process of indigo dyeing. Indigo, itself, had a putrid odor, and the procedure of producing blue cloth in vats of salvaged urine was not a pleasant one. Yet, women did it. The article pointed out that our foremothers endured these hardships, but what it failed to recognize was the miracle of it all. Women fed their families, protected them, clothed them, and kept them warm in spite of the fact that life was often a lonely, frightening, exhausting, and unpleasant experience. They still managed to nurture a germ of beauty in their hearts. Their quilts show us that. Some of them were simple squares of fabrics salvaged from salesmen's sample books or scraps from worn-out clothing that were hastily stitched together and tied with string or yarn. Fast bedding was a necessity when winters closed in rapidly. Yet, consider the other quilts, the glorious ones that have come down to us, also from those quiltmakers. The nonquilting world often fails to understand what you and I know well, that quilts don't "just happen." Beautiful quilts take time. They take vision. They take perseverance.
So, I am in awe of those earlier women. They made wonderful quilts, and the creating of those beautiful quilts may have been the thread that held their minds and hearts together through times of bleakness. I understand this, and so I wonder if we all don't have that same gene in our makeup. We no longer have to sew by kerosene lantern. We no longer have to find our way to the privy in the dark of bitter-cold nights. We no longer have to bar the door against bears or exist on smoked meats and tough, dry bread. Still, when we sit down to make a quilt, we face the same basic challenges that those women did. We make fabric choices, we cut them into pieces, and we sew the pieces together to create a tangible testament of the vision in our hearts.
I think that it does not matter how I got "here." The important thing is that I carry in my heart that enduring love of making quilts. The remarkable thing is that I am here now, in this time, making quilts in contemporary comfort with current fabric and tools, and that I have the leisure time to do it. The wonder of it is that I still have, just as those earlier women did, quilt visions in my head.
©HK 2003
Helen Kelley is a quiltmaker, lecturer, author, and teacher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit Helen on the Internet at her website www.helenkelley-patchworks.com or email Helen at this address: helen@helenkelley-patchworks.com.
Helen's book Every Quilt Tells a Story: A Quilter's Stash of Wit and Wisdom is a collection of two decades of Loose Threads. Now in its second printing, the book is available at quilt shops, bookstores, or from us at https://secure.tpli.com/VillageQuiltShoppe/QV_Products.asp. Helen will be signing copies of her book at our Primedia booth at the International Quilt Festival, October 30 through November 2, 2003, in Houston, Texas.
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