Last Things

As we prepare to retire at the end of June we are facing the 'last things'. Today I was liturgist for the last time in a church pastored by my husband. I read from 1 Corinthians, Chapter 3. A lady told me it was the best Corinthians reading she'd ever heard. I hear Paul's voice in my mind. I am merely a conduit for his words.

The prelude today was a wonderful rendition of Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, one of the first hymns I learned after I joined my husband's denomination. I could hardly stem the tears when I stood to offer announcements and lead the call to worship.

We will spend this next week packing. It is the last time I will pack to move from a church parsonage, and God willing, we will not need to pack to move again for twenty or thirty years. We have lived in four states, eleven cities, ten parsonages. And we both moved once in childhood.

The sound of the tape ripping off the tape dispenser upsets our Kamikaze. She hates loud or unpredictable noises. But our Suki, who we adopted five and a half years ago, has already lived in three houses and she takes it in stride. They love our retirement home, and soon will forget they ever lived anywhere but there.

My husband has a vacation due and we are going across state to prepare our retirement home for moving in. Things that belonged to my folks, or that Dad bought after Mom's passing, will have to go to make room for our stuff. We carefully consider what we need and what we can give away, what goes into storage and what is sold. Heirlooms I have owned for twenty or thirty years are passed on to other family members. Antiques we collected but can't keep need new homes. We imagine a new environment for our new, permanent home. Furniture that fits, new things, permanent things.

Next month will be my husband's last worship service, his last communion served to his assigned church, and the last good-bye celebration as we leave a church. There will be a farewell dinner for all the retiring pastors in the conference, some of whom served in neighboring communities or who served churches we were also at.

1971 the year we met at college

Service in ministry is hard, and the itinerant ministry is even harder. I married  young, full of idealism and with a great faith in humanity. I did not believe then in evil. I had to encounter its many forms before I capitulated and accepted that evil does take residence in human hearts and contort relationships and corrupt institutions.

I have seen faith in action, how people can become the hands of a higher power and bring health and healing, wholeness and grace into lives. And both of these, evil and good, reside in each person waiting for our weakness or strength to loose them into the world.

Nearly forty-two years my husband and I have traveled this rocky road. Next month we reinvent the world. There are a lot of decisions to be made. The one thing I know is that I will, first thing, join that quilt guild in town and continue to explore the creative possibilities that quilting has offered me for twenty-three years. The creative process has grounded me when I needed it, invigorated me when I was down in heart, and offered me a therapeutic dose of happiness when around me was chaos.


We face many last things, but other things are 'forever'. And I thank God for those forever things in my life, especially for my best friend and partner, my husband and the father of my child.

Houses

I have been thinking about houses a lot lately. The house we are moving into and the houses I have lived in.

About the time of my birth a whole neighborhood of Levittown-type houses were built in the farm fields surrounding the 1830s house we lived in. Because of Facebook, several years ago I reconnected with friends who grew up on Rosemont Avenue. 

Rosemont Avenue houses behind me

My dad and his family had moved into the house in 1935. Grandpa was an insurance salesman, and the Depression destroyed his business and livelihood. He had to sell the new 1920s bungalow in town to rent half of a worn out old farmhouse.

Dad and Grandfather in the old house

After a few years he bought the house and fixed it up. Indoor plumbing was installed and three apartments carved out.  My cousins lived in one apartment, my grandparents in another, and my family in the third.

The house after my grandfather bought it and fixed it up

Before Rosemont Avenue and the housing project

In the 1940s grandfather built a gas station on the property in front of the house. Dad and my uncles and all their friends worked there at some time or another.

The house while grandfather was building a gas station along the main road

The Station

I was ten when my family moved to Michigan. We moved into a 1920s house on a (then) elm-lined street. I missed the old house and my friends and family. I dreamt about going back and buying the house. Then it was torn down and replaced by an apartment building. The lilacs and willows were torn up too.

The listing for the house my folks bought in Michigan

I went to college, married, and moved to twelve more towns; plus a move to a newly built parsonage during one four-year appointment. We have lived in the inner city, small towns, rural areas, and the suburbs. One parsonage was literally attached to the church, with a cement walkway between them. We could sit at the dining-room table and people would lean on the window sill and talk to us as we breakfasted.

city house

the new parsonage

small town house

village house

The neighborhood in inner city Philadelphia

When I was in college my family moved into the house I inherited and will move into next month. it is a mid-century modern ranch in the 'burbs.

My inherited house in the 'burbs

My nostalgia about houses started with that first move. When I was first quilting I made A House for All Seasons, twelve houses blocks to represent each month of the year.

Madison House quilt block

And when I designed my personal Album quilt I included a house block that was based on my first home, with a willow branch and lilacs. There were huge lilac bushes and willow trees surrounding the house.

My childhood home Album quilt block

I always wanted to make a quilt to represent the houses I have lived in. Now we are retiring to our last house I can start that project. I can also travel and see my paternal ancestral home in the Shenandoah Valley, and perhaps even the houses my mom lived in growing up in Kane and Milroy PA.

The Gochenour homestead in Virginia

Grandpa's birthplace in Milroy, PA

Almost forty-two years ago we married and moved into student housing at the seminary in Delaware, Ohio where we made our first home for three years. Oh, the places we've been and the houses we've been in!

The Methodist Theological School in Ohio dorm where we first lived

Empire Star Block

This week's block for Barbara Brackman's block of the week Jane Austen Family Album is for Napoleon  Bonaparte. Although Jane does not mention the war with France, her brothers and other family members were in the service.

We are packing, sorting things to sell, giving away stuff in preparation for moving next month. My husband is retiring. As we have lived in a church owned parsonage since 1989 we have to move at retirement, and because the parsonages have been huge we have to significantly downsize to fit into our modest, Mid-Century ranch I inherited. I will need to convert Dad's work room into a quilt room.

My fabric and supplies are mostly packed up. I will continue with the sampler as much as I can, but Love Entwined will languish until I have a new work space set up later.

But I can still read! I am working on Nathaniel Philbrick's Bunker Hill right now. Then I have a biography of the first American Saint, Elizabeth Seton and also a novel about German immigrants during WWI called Bohemian Flats.

Michigan 101: Springtime in Michigan

After a long, hard Michigan winter we look forward to the beauty of spring flowers. Last week Holland, Michigan held its annual Tulip Festival. But in yards everywhere the tulips and daffodils are blooming. Yesterday we were taken on a little auto tour of local gardens full of daffodils and tulips. Here are some photos from gardens past.

Fawn follow their mothers to the edge of the woods. Sometimes the doe and fawn go running right through the village here.

Here in Oceana County on our tour yesterday we saw the asparagus growing up from the bare ground of the fields. They say the late winter will delay the crop but not harm it. This is important as the county is the largest producer of asparagus in the country, and is home to the National Asparagus Festival. 

Soon the tress will be in flower, like the crabapple. Forsythia are in bloom now.

 I love when the lilacs bloom. I grew up in a house with thirty year old lilacs bushes. Their fragrance fills me with joyous nostalgia.

Winter is over.

Jane Austen Family Album :James Austen

Barbara Brackman chose Village Green to represent Jane's eldest brother, who served as a minister.

We have had illness in the family all week, so I was glad this was a simple block!

The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trent, A Mystery About A Quilt With An Unusual Provenance.

Liz Trent's novel pivots on an inherited quilt made with a special fabric, the May Silks created expressly for Princess 'May' (Mary) of Teck's wedding gown for her marriage to The Duke of York, George the son of Queen Victoria, in 1893.

"You can see the rose, the thistle, and chain of shamrocks--symbols for the nations of the United Kingdom...These flowers in the center look like daffodils...but more important, can you see those silver threads?" 

Caroline's life is in disorder. She split with her long time boyfriend then lost her lucrative, if dull, job. She has discovered she is pregnant, and her mother has dementia and must be moved into senior care, and the family cottage sold.

Caroline's mother has given her an old quilt. Upon examination by her friend it appears to incorporate fabrics made exclusively for the royal family. Having nothing better to do (start a new business, undergo a miscarriage, and fall for a new guy) Caroline goes on a quest to discover the mystery behind the quilt, who made it, and why her Granny Jean wanted her mother to be sure to hand it down to her.

Plot-driven novels and mysteries are not my usual purview; but there is a time for for them, and being down with a bad case of the stomach flu this past week, The Forgotten Seamstress was perfect.

The novel is written in three time periods; the back story of the quiltmaker Maria Romano, who in 1910 is brought from an orphanage to work as a seamstress in the royal household; transcriptions of interviews with Maria in 1970 when she was in a hospital for the insane; and the contemporary story of Caroline who inherits the quilt. Maria is the more successful and interesting character, the tape transcriptions beautifully rendered.

Through Maria's character we take a tour of  the treatment of the mentally ill over thirty years. When when the quilt goes missing Caroline has to confront the plight of the homeless and life on the street.

As typical of a mystery, the unraveling is complicated and and has a surprise ending.

"As I lifted the quilt out and unfolded it right side out...light from the window illuminated its beautiful, shimmering patterns and dazzling colors."

Now...the quilt.

The mystery quilt is a Medallion style, central square on point, with the center square embroidered with a Lover's Knot, and bordered with lozenges pieced from silks. The next border includes appliquéd figures that become an important clue to the validity of Maria's story. There are hand woven velvets a century old. As the borders move outwards, the fabrics change to lilac and gray cottons, including WWI era uniform fabrics, in a zig zag pattern. The last border of Grandmother's Fans, dating to the 1970s, includes Liberty Cottons.

The quilt was layered with a sheet for the backing and a thin wool blanket as batting, or wadding as it is called in the novel. The quilting stitches followed the seams.

A pattern to replicate the (fictional) quilt has been developed by Judy Baker-Rogers and can be found here.

Liz Trent grew up living next to and working at the family silk mill in Britain.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for access to the e-book for my review.

The Forgotten Seamstress
Sourcebooks Landmark
ISBN: 9781402282485

Louisa Catherine Adams:The Other Mrs Adams by Margery M. Heffron

"...many undertakings which appear very difficult and arduous to my Sex, are by no means so trying as imagination forever depicts them--energy and discretion, follow the necessity of their exertion, to protect the fancied weakness of feminine imbecility."

When I was researching the First Ladies for my Redwork quilt Remember the Ladies I was fascinated by Louisa Catherine Adams. So when I heard about the first biography written on her I knew I had to read it.


Louisa reminds me of an 19th c version of Eleanor Roosevelt in that she was intelligent but spent her younger years battling self doubt. Both faced a domineering mother-in-law. And both women blossomed late in life. Each had troubled marriages, but was a political helpmate to their husband. Both advanced women's rights.

One huge difference: while Franklin Roosevelt cheated on Eleanor, John Quincy, following his father's example, was a true and life-long lover to Louisa. Their tempestuous romance is a story that rivals Elizabeth and Darcy in misunderstandings, stubborn willfulness of spirit, and intellectual duels.

Remember the Ladies designed by Nancy Bekofske

Louisa was born in England to an American merchant father and a British mother...who married after the birth of several children. She was raised in luxury, was well educated and cosmopolitan, speaking fluent French. Louisa played the harp and sang beautifully. Her family were long time friends of the Adams clan. John Quincy was a frequent guest, and fell in love with Louisa. But took his sweet time proposing to her, as he felt the heavy burden placed upon him to ACHIEVE, and marriage would keep him away from applying himself to achievement. Their courtship and engagement was full of misunderstandings. John kept Louisa uncertain when he would set a marriage date. It could have easily ended their future together. But passion prevailed, and the 30 year old John Quincy married the 22 year old Louisa just before he left for his assignment in Russia.

John Quincy Adams as a young man in 1796

Louisa and John Quincy shared many intellectual interests and a deep passion, but each suffered from feelings of inadequacy. They were perfectionists who fell short of both their own and the other's expectations.

John and Abigail Adams raised John Quincy for public service. Their expectations were extremely high. This perfectionism was passed down even to their grandchildren's generation. It was not a healthy Adams trait.

Louisa Catherine Adams at marriage

Whenever they were separated, or Louisa was ill, John showed a great affection towards Louisa. But he was also often self-absorbed in his career and his drive for continual self-improvement kept him isolated from his family, physically and emotionally.

Rarely in good health, the petite Louisa suffered nine miscarriages, a still born child, the death of her beloved little girl, separation from her sons for six years, and the suicide of a son. The medical attention available was blistering and bleeding, laudanum and other 'cures' we shudder at today. She also suffered from a reoccurring painful and disfiguring bacterial skin condition, erysipelas.

As the wife of an ambassador, she was exposed to the courts of Europe with all the glitz and glamor of royalty, yet was unable to afford the wardrobe to suit her position. Louisa made friends easily and was readily taken under wing by American Ex-pats. Her husband was oblivious to her gifts as a social ambassador early in their marriage. At a time when it was considered ill mannered to campaign for political office, Louisa did all the footwork, managing his presidential campaign through social affairs, the 'parlor politics' used so successfully by Dolley Madison.

One of the most thrilling adventures ever undergone by any First Lady was Louisa's 40 day, 3,000 mile trip across post-war Europe in 1815. John had been called to Paris to aid in the Treaty of Ghent, leaving Catherine and their son Charles in St. Petersburg. After nine months apart he learned he would not return to Russia, assigned to London. He wrote for his family to join him at once. Louisa had to arrange the sale of their home and goods, plan their travel and arrange for protection as they traversed Russia, Prussia, and France. It was the middle of winter. The roads were terrible, unmarked rutted dirt or deep mud. Robber and murders haunted the open roads and the hamlets along the way. All her money was secreted on her person. She lost her male guard and had to make do with a fourteen year old boy. As she neared France, traveling in a Russian carriage with Russian and Prussian sidekicks, a new concern arose. Napoleon had escaped from Elba. Russia and Prussia were bitter enemies of Napoleon. The travelers feared attack by the crowds in the streets.

Louisa in mid-life had blossomed into the strong and capable person she was meant to be. Her husband came to respect and trust her as an equal partner and she became his personal secretary for a while.

As many First Ladies have experienced, life in Washington was stressful and isolated. Etiquette Wars over who called on who first had started with Elizabeth Monroe. When Louisa followed the precedent of not calling first on everyone in Washington no one was pleased and her socials were boycotted. Her health often kept her from attending events or accompanying her husband socially.

John Quincy Adams was a scholar of great intellect with a remarkable career, starting as a teenager who accompanied his father on his diplomatic missions. After graduating from Harvard and a brief career in Law, John Quincy was minister to the Netherlands; Secretary of State of Massachusetts; taught at Harvard; was minister to Russia; represented America at the Ghent peace talks; served as plenipotentiary to Great Britain; and was Secretary of State under President Monroe. After serving as President he served as Senator, arguing for abolition. He died on the floor of the Senate.

John Quincy spent years researching and writings the most thorough, and un-readably dry, exploration of weights and measures. He was compulsive about keeping a diary, and  alphabetized his personal letters. During a more peaceful and contented time, he indulged in composing poetry and  thought had he been able to choose his own path he would have made a great poet

After John Quincy's death Louisa wrote several books about her life, "Adventures of a Nobody," "Record of My Life" and "Narrative of a Journey from Russia to France 1815". She corresponded with Sarah and Angelina Grimke' and was interested in the nascent movement for women's rights.

Margery M. Heffron saw Louisa's portrait at the Adams National Historical Park in the 1970s and wrote,"Her level, appraising glance challenged me to pay her respect." This book is her response. The author passed away while writing this biography and was unable to finish Louisa's life. Sadly the story ends at John Quincy's bid for reelection to the presidency.

"The Other Mrs. Adams" was a fascinating and complex woman.

I thank Yale University Press for e-book access through NetGalley.



Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams
Margery M. Heffron
Yale University Press
 ISBN: 9780300197969
Cloth: $40.00