Family History Friday: Grandma's Quilts

This is another column that I will have every so often--mostly so my children will have some bits and pieces of their heritage mixed in here to read. The early snowstorm a few weeks ago motivated my husband to finish cleaning out the garage and to transfer the remainder of the moving boxes to the basement so that he can park his car in the garage, too. Now he won't have to scrape ice and snow off the car windows on winter mornings. One of the happy results of this project was that I located one of my linen closet boxes and dug out my Grandma's quilt. It is the perfect thing for my guest room bed, don't you think?

My Grandma Pew--Anna Jane Kleinman--was born on November 5, 1896 in Mesa, Arizona. She was the second of ten children born to her parents. She had an older sister named Blanch. She married my Grandpa--Walter Harvey Pew--on November 26, 1919. This was just a year after my Grandpa's first wife, Viola, died in the flu epidemic. His infant daughter died just two days earlier, on the same day she was born. My Grandpa had two other daughters at this time, the oldest daughter had died six months before her mother and baby sister. My Grandma was a friend of Viola and had helped in the home during this difficult time of sickness and death. My Grandma Pew had eight children--5 sons and 3 daughters. Her oldest child, Louise, died when she was just 8 months old. Her third son and fourth child, Ned, was an invalid his whole life and died in his late teens. Her other 6 children lived to adulthood. My dad was the fourth son and seventh child.

My Grandma Pew lived in Mesa for most of her life. She grew up in a time of horses and covered wagons, dirt roads, Indians, and no electricity or indoor plumbing. Times had certainly changed by the time she passed away in November of 1984! My grandpa was a farmer--a dairy farmer for much of his life--and my Grandma says that "she milked many a cow" in her day. She would cook chickens for Sunday dinner that had been strutting around in the yard just the day before. To live in such a time meant a whole lot of hard work--and in temperatures of 110 or more with no air conditioning. It was not a life for the faint-hearted. She was definitely a strong, capable, and talented woman.

I remember one time when we were visiting, and my sister Shellie had taken a class on tatting lace so she was working on a piece for her class. My Grandma saw what she was doing and exclaimed, "Are you tatting lace? I haven't seen anyone doing that in years and years!" I could tell she was delighted by it. Another thing that I remember about my Grandma is that she had a salt and pepper shaker collection. She had them all in a cupboard with glass doors in her dining room. I loved to stand in front of that cupboard and look at all the different sets of salt and pepper shakers. She used to tell us that when she got older, she would give each of us one of those sets to remember her by--which she did. I have a set that looks like two covered wagons. My sister Annette inherited the remainder of her collection and has added to it. I also remember that my Grandma had a hallmark of Mormon crafting on her coffee table--a bunch of resin grapes. She also had a set of frosted glasses with cacti on them--that is what I inherited from her--I loved those glasses. (My wonderful husband went searching in antique shops in downtown Glendale, AZ one year and surprised me at Christmas with a full set of the glasses to replace some of mine that had been broken.)

Another hobby of my Grandma's was to quilt. In her personal history she said she had made over 50 quilts in just the last few years (this was written in 1977--when she was about 80 years old.) She made a quilt for each of her grandchildren, to be saved for when they got married. So that is how this beautiful quilt came to be on my guest-room bed. I love to go in there and marvel at the thousands of tiny stitches and examine the beautiful flowers that she painted in the center with fabric paints and mostly just to think of all the little things I can remember about her. I am grateful for the heritage she left me of faith, devotion to family, hard work, and kindness. I look forward to meeting her again and getting to know her better.