Aunt Carrie's Quilt & New Finds

My Aunt Pat Ramer had three of my Great-Aunt Carrie Ramer Bobb's postage stamp quilts, which my grandfather wrote about in an article for his hometown paper. One sadly met its end in a washing machine mishap. The other two were were coming unsewn and some fabrics had shredded. Aunt Pat took one quilt apart to repair it. And there it sat in her closet.

I brought the quilts home with me to see what I can do.

Aunt Carrie made the quilts in the 1960s with fabric scraps. 1" squares of fabric were sewn by hand into nine-patch units. Colors are repeated to make larger "x" patterns.

 Below is the top of the quilt Aunt Pat took apart. There are several more pieces as well.

Read my article on Aunt Carrie's quilt making and Chive Dumpling recipe at
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-quilts-and-chive-dumpling-recipe-of.html
See more about Aunt Carrie, including more of her quilts owned by Sidney Bobb at
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2012/09/our-heirloom-quilts.html

Lit Up: One Reporter, Three Schools, Twenty-four Books that Can Change Lives

Does teaching literature to 10th graders make a difference in their lives? How do we instill an appetite for serious reading in an age of smart phones, graphic novels, social texting, and computer gaming?  Does economic class, home life, school district, environment, or teacher effectiveness, make a difference? Can literature impact the lives of young people?

In Lit Up David Denby set out to explore these questions by visiting three classrooms in three schools. He chose Tenth Grade because fifteen-year-old's minds are still plastic, they are grappling with identity and their future, and are still 'reachable'. An age, perhaps, when it it not too late for them to learn to read literature for the sheer pleasure of it and perhaps begin to see literature as art.

Denby visited Sean Leon at Beacon High in Manhattan whose reading list was heavy on existential classics; James Hillhouse High in inner-city New Haven, a public school with many troubles; and a Marmaroneck, wealthy New York City suburb school. Each class differed in books and teaching practices. We follow the classes through the reading lists as Denby reports on how the works are taught and student's responses as individuals and as a class. Denby interjects his own opinions and thoughts about what he observes. I don't always agree with Denby, or the teachers, but was drawn into formulating my own ideas in response.

Sean Leon's class emphasized good writing and independent thinking. His reading list was grim, rooted in "the fears and disasters of the last century," as Denby notes. Leon pushed his students to totally engage with life and evaluate societal expectations, their addiction to social media, and the fast food diet of Internet fodder. Denby describes Leon as "a radical in spirit, a conservative in values."

Jessica Zelenski taught at the worst performing school in the state. Social Justice was the theme that year. Her book choices also precluded 'feel good' books. She instituted "Read Around"; students were to chose one of four books: A Long Way Gone: Memories of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nagisi, Night by Elie Wiesel, and Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. The students at first rejected the selections. Zelenski explained what the books were about and read from each before asking a volunteer to continue reading. Most students decided to read Beah's book. Zelenski bought extra copies with her own money. The kids soon requested silent reading period to work on their books. These kids understood troubled families, poverty, trust and safety issues, and had a deep sense of justice. Yale University had a college promise program but Hillhouse had no office to help kids navigate college entrance. Zelenski knew that studying literature might not get them into college, but it could help them live. When the students demanded reading time it was a huge leap. Not only were they enjoying reading, they enjoyed reading together. At the end of the school year students were able to meet Beah who was in town. They knew his journey, they knew he had come through and flourished, and now they actually met

The best part of the book are the students. I enjoyed meeting them, hearing their words, watching them grow. There is nothing more amazing than watching a young person's understanding blossom and burst open like flowers in spring.

Reading this book I felt my inadequacies as a writer and as a reader. These 10th grade students were prodded to levels of critical thinking I had only experienced in honors and 400-level classes. I spend hours writing a book review or blog post. Have I become self-satisfied and lazy? It's been nearly 40 years since I graduated university. Have I settled for 'good enough?'

This was an interesting and thought-provoking book.

The Reading Lists

The 10th grade reading list at Beacon, taught by Sean Leon, included A Rose for Emily by Faulkner and Hawthorne's The Minister Back Veil, poems by Sylvia Plath, Brave New World by Huxley, Siddhartha by Hesse, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky, No Exit by Sartre, and Beckett's Waiting for Godot. (As a teen I read Brave New World, Siddhartha, and Man's Search for Meaning and saw Waiting for Godot performed. Slaughterhouse-Five I encountered in a college course on Black Humor. I didn't read Plath until I was post-college.)

At Beacon, Mary Whittemore's 11th graders read Middlesex by Eugenides, excerpts from Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman, The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Morrison's The Song of Solomon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Kesey, The Things They Carried by O'Brien, Ceremony by Silko, and Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. ( I read Kesey in the Black Humor college class, Gatsby on my own as a teen, And Eugenides and O'Brien as an adult.)

At Beacon, Daniel Guralnick's 11th graders read Rip Van Winkle by Irving, Hawthorne's The Birthmark, Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, Twain's The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Daisy Miller by James, Crane's The Open Boat, Capote's In Cold Blood, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway, and Invisible Man by Ellison. (I read Hemingway, Capote, and Poe as a teen, and later Crane and James as an adult. I never read any of these in a classroom setting.)

James Hillhouse 10th teacher Jessica Zelenski taught To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee, Ursula LeGuin's The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas, Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, and Hemingway's the Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Students chose to read Beah's A Long Way Gone, Tan's Joy Luck Club, Night by Wiesel, or A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. To prod students to actually finish reading one book was victory. (I only read the Sonnets in a classroom. I read Lee, Tan,  and Wiesel as an adult. My son read Beah in college.)

Mary Beth Jordan at Mamaroneck high taught 10th graders Wall's The Glass Castle, Night by Weisel, Macbeth by Shakespeare, East of Eden by Steinbeck, The Flowers by Alice Walker, Cheever's The Reunion, Saunders's Sticks, and poetry by Shelley, Frost, Eliot, Roethke, and Kumin. Students chose to read Orwell's 1984 or Bradbury's 451, and The Kite Runner by Hosseini or King's The Body. (Again, I read none of these in a classroom setting. I read Wall, Hosseini and Eliot as an adult, and Night, Steinbeck, Orwell and Bradbury as a teen.)

Denby, a movie critic, wrote Great Books in 1996.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Lit Up by David Denby
Henry Holt & Co
Publication Date: February 2, 2016
$30.00 hard cover
ISBN: 9780805095852

Some New and Old WIP

I have many projects going. Of course, Love Entwined by Esther Aliu, but I also made the first part of Little Hazel, a new quilt by Esther Aliu. She has a great tutorial on her blog and I gathered up my courage to make the star center.

I also have Kona Fox Kits in process. I have the tree leaves done and am ready to start the fox.

Shiba owners love foxes because Shibas look fox-like.

Kamikaze and Suki

And I am going to do a modified version of Vintage Baseball featuring the Detroit Tigers. I am reverse appliquéing the "D" and have reversed the colors to blue on white. I will use those big white corners for some embroidered Tiger Hall of Fame stars!

I am still machine quilting a row by row quilt. (Ran out of thread!)

Of course I have loads of blocks waiting to be made into quilts and quilts waiting to be quilted. Pretty normal situation for quilters! Like my Redwork Alice in Wonderland and Pan American blocks, some Wizard of Oz embroidered blocks, and American History embroidered blocks.

Mirkwood Studios Alice in Wonderland Redwork blocks

Pan American Redwork blocks

Love Entwined

The Classics, Literary and Musical: Sister Carrie and Star Turns and Cameo Appearances

Two Reviews today! Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser and Star Turns and Cameo Appearances by music critic Bernard Jacobson.

The Classic American Novel

Our local library book club read Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, a book I had never read. It is considered one of the 100 best novels by The Guardian. Dresier's style, called 'Naturalism', was hugely influential. His books had to be a big 180 for readers used to Victorian novels. His characters lacked morals, followed their baser desires for love or material things, and they don't all get their just desserts in the end.

"The critics have not really understood what I was trying to do," Dreiser said later. "Here is a book that is close to life. It is intended not as a piece of literary craftsmanship, but as a picture of conditions done as simply and effectively as the English language will permit … It makes one feel that American criticism is the joke which English literary authorities maintain it to be. When [the novel] gets to the people, they will understand, because it is a story of real life, of their lives."

Sister Carrie was published in 1900 and the book begins in 1880 when unsophisticated, pretty Carrie leaves her rural Wisconsin home for her sister's home in Chicago. On the train she meets a 'masher,' Drouet, a traveling salesman with a golden tongue who eventually sells Carrie on the idea of moving in with him when she can't make it in the big city. Under Drouet's protection Carrie enjoys nice clothes, good food, and a comfortable apartment. Her prettiness becomes beauty, her provincial simplicity is replaced with more worldly manners. She also badgers Drouet about marriage, which he deftly rebuffs with hollow promises.

I had trouble with Dreiser's writing style. I was being told about the inner lives of the characters and their personalities instead of being shown. Until this point I "had" to read the book. Then Hurstwood comes into the picture. He manages a swell bar that Drouet frequents, and the two have an informal friendship. When Hurstwood meets Carrie he becomes infatuated with her. He is wealthy, a workaholic, with a distant wife and children with whom he shares little but a house and income. Hurstwood decides he deserves a little love and pursues Carrie. Carrie gets starry eyed. Hurstwood is not only of a higher class than Drouet; she believes he will bring her social legitimacy and give her the life style she covets. Hurstwood has one problem: his money is in his wife's name as a tax protection and divorce means impoverishment, loss of social standing, and employment. One night he has an opportunity to steal money from his boss.

It is the best scene in the novel, bringing the character to life. Carrie has kicked Drouet out, and he tells her that Hurstwood is married. Hurstwood can't let Carrie go. He grabs the money and lures Carrie away on false pretenses. Carrie is ignorant of what he has done, and blames him for their fall into poverty.  Hurstwood's story and tragic end makes Sister Carrie a page-turner. And Carrie? She ends up on stage, becomes famous and wealthy, but is distrustful of men and lonely.

We had a great discussion of the book. Themes of class and the lure of upward mobility especially interested us, as well as how women's options have changed in 100 years.

One lady said she couldn't put the book down. Another said she would had never chosen to read Sister Carrie, but was glad she did.

"Oh, Carrie, Carrie! Oh blind strivings of the human heart!...Know, then, that for you is neither surfeit nor content."

*****

A Career in Classical Music

Bernard Jacobson's memoir of a life in music, Star Turns and Cameo Appearances, has an index over 20 pages long. "Blessed or cursed" with "nearly total recall," he drops that many names, performances, and works. 

I requested the book because he was as the Philadelphia Orchestra's  "Manager, Publications and Educational Programs," later changed to "Program Annotator and Musicologist," under Riccardo Muti. Our family joke was that we moved to Philadelphia for my husband's favorite orchestra, then under Eugene Ormandy. Muti succeeded Ormandy and we enjoyed several years of his conducting before leaving Philly.

I enjoyed his stories about Muti. It was interesting to learn more about the man behind the baton.

I was thrilled when Jacobson mentioned the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia which he joined for a while as a Bass singer. Sean Diebler organized Choral Arts in 1982 as a 120-200 voice choir. My husband and I had been singing with The Mastersingers choir under Bob and Gail Reilley for years when we auditioned for Choral Arts. We sang with them in their second and third seasons, 1984-5. This was before Jacobson's joining.

The Choral Arts Society participated in a Concert for Humanity at the Academy of Music. The Concert was organized as part of the Nuclear Arms Control Movement. Riccardo Muti conducted members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Orchestra, and Concerto Soloists.  On November 11, 1984 my husband and I were on stage as the chorus sang Kodaly's Hymn to St. Stephen, and two pieces we had sung before, Virgil Thompson's Alleluia, and Vaughn Williams' O Clap Your Hands. The concert ended with Ravel's Bolero. The program notes for several pieces, including Bolero, were written by Jacobson! I am writing this right after seeing Leonard Slatkin conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in Bolero last evening. Very cool!

As Jacobson notes, Deibler was demanding but exciting. We sang The Messiah with the Philadelphia Orchestra under William Smith at the Academy of Music, an incredible experience. We also sang in a  Rodgers and Hammerstein pops concert at the Mann Music Center under Erich Kunzel. I was used to Masses and Requiems and enjoyed letting loose with Oklahoma! Another highlight was singing Ralph Vaughn Williams' A Sea Symphony. Incredible. We also enjoyed singing The Brahms Neue Liebeslieder. My husband took a position in New York City, commuting from Philly, and we left the choir. Soon after I became pregnant and my choral singing days were over! Interestingly, Diebler graduated from my grandfather's alma mater, Susquehanna University. Diebler died in 2009.

I also got a kick out of Jacobson's mention of David Grossman of the Temple University Cinematheque screening private viewings for Riccardo Muti. We frequented the Cinematheque and loved seeing those classic films on the large screen. It was here that I first viewed classic films like Casablanca. Grossman's introductions enhanced our enjoyment. We started attending while I was still a Temple student and before the showing Grossman would encourage us to enjoy a cup of coffee without payment. He knew we were poor students. 

Frankly, most of what Jacobson talks about is beyond my ken and made me quite dizzy and overwhelmed with information. His career took him from his native Britain to Holland, Chicago, Philadelphia, and the West Coast. Those intimately involved in the world of orchestras and classical music will better appreciate his stories. But from the start he has an upbeat, excited voice and you feel a sense of his personality and love of music. 

I received a free ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Star Turns and Cameo Appearances: Memoirs of a Life Among Musicians

by Bernard Jacobson

University of Rochester Press

$34.95 hard cover

ISBN:9781580465410

Bill Bryson's Latest Walk in The World's Largest Park

I had never read Bill Bryson. Book after book came out and sounded interesting but I never managed to get a hold of one and actually read it. So when I saw The Road to Little Dribbling on NetGalley I requested it. It was about time I read the man!

The Road to Little Dribbling chronicles Bryson's travels across England, a follow-up to his 1995 travel book Notes from a Small Island. He starts in Buggar Bognor in the south and zig-zags north to Cape Wrath. He revisits places he knew and loved, noting the changes--mostly for the worse. "In countless small ways the world around us grows gradually shittier," he notes. Where quaint gardens beautified houses there are driveways with cars and trash cans.

Much to my husband's chagrin, I opened the book and started roaring almost immediately. He thought he was reading the humorous book. We had a moment of competing busts of laughter, but after four pages I was still at it. He admitted defeat and left the room.

Bryson never misses an opportunity to note the foibles, imbecilities, frailties, and ridiculous in human nature. And, we are educated about the threat of attack by cows. It is very real. In Britain every cow attack is national news. Four people were killed  in 2009 after all.

I was in a cow field at Putt's farm when I was a little girl. I traipsed through the cow pies to pet one. Neither she nor her girlfriends made any threatening moves. (Unlike the goat at a tourist trap in New York State that went after my coat when I was four!) I can't imagine living in a country where a cow attack is considered a threat. Here in America we are fearful of real threats. Like getting Ebola or the plague. The news wouldn't report it if it weren't a threat, right?

Bryson is involved in The Campaign to Preserve Rural England, The Metropolitan Green Belt around London protects against the urban sprawl we have in America. I spent a great deal of my lie in urban sprawl, i.e. the 'burbs. I am used to miles and miles of big box stores, chain restaurants, and houses that look all the same. The Economist magazine argues that the Green Belt limits growth. Who needs pretty, pristine, open spaces when we can have another coffee house?

I actually like the idea of open green spaces in a city. I think of the parks in Philadelphia. William Penn planned five parks to provide open space. Over 60 parks including Fairmont Park along the Schuylkill River and the Wissihickon Park with its gorge that inspired painters like Thomas Moran, cover 9,200 acres in prime real estate areas.

When Bryson is admiring the moor around the River Colne, unchanged for a thousand years, he listens to the roars of Heathrow airport and learns they want to build a runway on that will destroy most of Wraysbury Reservoir. I remembered the Tinicum Wildlife Refuge nestled between the Philadelphia Airport and Gulf Oil. It was a bird sanctuary along the migration paths. Jets flew low overhead as we admired a Green Heron or saw thousands of Snow Egrets turn the trees white.

Bryson covers some things that were quite interesting, but other times I didn't feel much connection to what he was writing about. He can come across as curmudgeonly. I began to think the England I had wanted to see forty years ago had vanished. But in the end he affirms his love of his adopted country, especially for the beauty of land that I have always imagined.

Hedgerow in England

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased
review.

The Road to Little Dribbling
Bill Bryson
Doubleday Books
Publication Date: January 19, 2015
$12.99 ebook
ISBN:9780385539296

Happy Birthday, Aunt Alice!

My father's sister Alice is having a milestone birthday today!

Alice as a girl. The Military Road house in the background.

I was four when Aunt Alice married Uncle Kenny. Dad took her down the aisle as Grandpa Gochenour  passed away the year before.

Dad and his sister Alice 

In 1935 my grandparents moved to Military Road; the house was so huge it held three apartments. Aunt Alice and Uncle Kenny moved into the upstairs apartment; my family moved from upstairs to the larger downstairs apartment--which Aunt Mary and Uncle Clyde and family moved out and into their own home. I was lonely with my three cousins left. Grandma Gochenour (known as 'Ma') lived in the smallest apartment before moving in with my family.

Soon enough I had a little brother and Aunt Alice had children. We played on the swing set and had a pool in the shade of the spreading willow tree. Then Aunt Alice and Uncle Kenny moved into their own home and my dad and mom packed up and we moved to Michigan.

One of my fondest memories of those early days was Christmas morning visits to all my cousin's houses. Because Aunt Alice lived upstairs, we would go up in our robes.

Mom, Me, Aunt Alice, and 'Ma' on Christmas Morning around 1958

Aunt Alice

Uncle Kenny, Aunt Alice, and Ma Christmas in late 1950s

Tonawanda winters meant snow and lots of it! Dad ran the gas station his father built and had a truck with a snow plow. We had lots of high banks of snow around the house to play on.

Aunt Alice, the gas station behind. 1963

There were parties, picnics, and fun. I always remembered a Halloween costume party at the house. Aunt Alice was Daisy Mae to Uncle Kenny's Lil' Abner!

1959 Halloween; Aunt Alice as Daisy Mae in Military Road kitchen

After we moved my family returned to Tonawanda every year to visit.

Aunt Alice in the 1960s

Aunt Alice and Uncle Ken in the 1970s

Aunt Alice reminds me of her mother: Easy going, optimistic, contented, and happy; crafty and capable; family-oriented with a uncomplicated faith in God. I am sorry I did not inherit more of those 'Becker' traits!

Aunt Alice, Aunt Mary and 'Ma'. Three lovely ladies!

Aunt Alice visiting Dad with her grandchildren

Aunt Alice is the Gochenour/Becker family historian and genealogist and I have learned much from her on visits.

Here's to a wonderful birthday, Aunt Alice, and prayers that you at least match your mother's long life!  

Aunt Alice, Uncle Kenny, and my cousins

Old Quilts by Florence Peto Part II

Today I share Part II of Florence Peto's article, Old Quilts Tell a Story, found in the 1938 magazine The American Home.

Pictured: (Top)The Bride's Quilt of Mary Ann Dubois--signed, dated 1835, and patterned after famous original conception of the Star of Bethlehem or Rising Sun design created in 1810 by Mary Totten of Staten Island. it is owned by Miss Ella Butler. (Lower) Baby's Building Blocs Quilt made in Devonshire, England, in early nineteenth century. Here scintillate silk and satin create bright, arresting beauty. Courtesy of the Newark Museum in Newark N. J.

Liberty Quilt, top left

In the category of a patriotic inspiration there is a fine old Liberty Quilt made by Hannah Childs of Warren, Rhode Island. Very soon after Congress formally adopted the device which is now on the Great Seal of the United States of American, the eagle was used lavishly by craftsmen and needleworkers to embellish furniture, china, woven textiles and even the patch quilt.

Not much is known of the quiltmaker's early history. Hannah Childs became Mrs. Wood. In time, her son, Jonathan Perry Wood, married a Pennsylvania-German girl named Mary Heckathorn; the couple emigrated to Dayton, Ohio, and the cherished Liberty Quilt went with them. All of Jonathan and Mary's children and some of their children's children were born in Dayton, including the granddaughter, who is the present owner of the quilt.

The President's Wreath is happily illustrative of the fine and even distinguished workmanship expended on patch quilts. Louise Kline was born in 1824.

At twenty-one, having been engaged for a short time, Louisa announced to friends that her wedding had been set. There commenced a great cider making, cake baking, dressmaking, and housecleaning on the farm; turkeys were roasted in the great round red-brick oven which stood out-of-doors and then there were stored in the cool cellar. All the usual preparations for festivity, dear to the heart of the Pennsylvania-German, animated the Kline household for a week before the important day. When the hour finally arrived every inch of the house, porch, stone steps, and walk had been scrubbed. 

People stood around and waited; the men smoked and talked about the crops and strolled toward the barns; the womanfolk sat in parlor and gossiped. There was a flurry when the minister arrived and there followed some joking and teasing of Louis'a expense because the bridegroom was late. By sundown those left of the wedding party were looking pretty grim. Some of the guests stayed and waited all night, others went off in wagons and on horseback. But the disappearance of the young groom on the day of his wedding remained an unsolved mystery. She lived  to be a "dea old lady," never married, and died at eighty-three.

*****

Picture: New Spreads in Old Quilt Patterns. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have inherited from grandmothers and great aunts the old things instinctively loved and appreciated; nor does everyone have the time to tour the country looking for antiques. But you ca go into your favorite store and find bedspreads copied exactly from the quilts made by hand many years ago in the colors you wish today.

An accompanying article touted quilts and coverlets for sale. "One good reproduction, made of double fabric of the same quality as the original, is the loom-quilted Bates spread at the top of the page. It comes in six colors, including old red and dark blue, each combined with white. A variant of the star motif is incorporated in "Norwich," a spread (shown at left) by Monument Mills, in pastels or strong colors. A Kentucky coverlet was the inspiration for the spread of jacquard construction (at lower left). It is particularly effective in rich blue and white and is made by Bates. The spread in the center at the bottom is from R. H. Macy and is named Bristol. It is difficult to believe it is machine made. The Sunflower pattern at the lower right has long been a favorite. Instead of tiny pieces of calico put together by hand, modern mills weave the same effect by machine. Neisler Mills make this attractive quilt."

*****

More About Florence Peto

From an article written by Gwen Marsten found here, "Few would argue that Florence Peto was the most influential quilt authority of the mid-twentieth century...A well-known authority on quilts and quilt history [she] worked as a consultant to museums in the selection and documentation of their collections."

See photos of Peto and her quilts at Vintage Textile's post here and here.