Nancy finishes Mom's WW2 Quilt

Quilt started during WWII connects family to past

Excerpt:

Cleone Peet was part of a wartime quilting bee, a pastime she shared with other women whose husbands were serving in World War II.


She cut the yellow squares and floral print triangles and pieced them together as she waited for her husband to return to their Michigan home.


Life interrupted her work, and the pieces were stored away in a cedar chest.


More than six decades later, her daughter Nancy Gilbert connected her mother's past to the family's future by finishing the yellow and green quilt Peet had begun in 1943.


"I wanted my children and grandchildren to see something that honored the family," she said. "When your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren wrap themselves in these quilts, they are surrounded by the love and warmth of generations past."


The affection Peet and Gilbert share for quilting fuels what experts estimate is a $3.3 billion industry in the United States. About 27.7 million Americans quilt, according to Quilter's Newsletter Magazine.


Gilbert, 61, has always loved to sew. She still uses a silver thimble her grandmother gave her when she was in junior high school.


She studied home economics at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio and taught herself to quilt. Children and a career as a corporate account manager for American Airlines diverted her attention for several years.


Then a friend talked Gilbert into joining a "quilt of the month" club, and that's when her mother remembered the pieces stored in the chest.


"I opened my mouth in awe the minute I saw them," Gilbert said.


Within six months Gilbert had finished the quilt and given it to her mother.


For her mother's 85th birthday, Gilbert crafted a family tree quilt with digital images of seven generations screened onto material.


"The genealogy my daughter does keeps us all connected to where we came from," Peet said.


Comment: My Mother and my Sister. In light of news this week that the first born has higher IQ's than the second, I attest to this!