© Copyright 2000
Ethel
By
Mae Ondracek
Ethel was a five-foot tall, spunky little gray-haired lady. She just couldn’t quit working, even though she lived in a nursing home. Her sister took her to church every Sunday morning. Ethel enjoyed this, especially the Sundays we had pot-luck dinners. After eating, she would visit and ask about everyone that missed church that day. She was interested in all the members, and they all loved her.
After breakfast, Ethel would jump up
and start taking trays to the cart. An
aide would gently take her arm, and lead her to a recliner. Ethel would sit down, fold her arms across
her chest, and very loudly go, “humph.”
She’d sit for a little while, then jump up and head for her room, her
cane tapping all the way. Her jaw set
in a firm hard line as she marched down the hall, not saying a word to anyone.
Soon we’d hear drawers slamming and
knew Ethel was letting off steam before settling down to her hand sewing. Her friends’ would bring her scraps of cloth, all neatly ironed. Using the bedside table, Ethel carefully cut
those scraps into quilt blocks and neatly stacked them into shoeboxes. Without a sewing machine, Ethel would sew
all the blocks together, using very small even hand stitches.
It usually took her over a month to
complete a quilt top. Then she would
ask for our help to move the dinning room tables together so she could
“sandwich” the quilt. After the noon
meal, most residents were put to bed for a nap, so it was no problem moving the
tables together for her.
Ethel would lay the quilt backing down and the batting on top of
it, going around and around the tables making sure it all was even. If an aide stopped to offer help, Ethel would
say, “No thanks. You have your job,
and this is my job.” Then, with
sparkles in her eyes, she’d lovingly unfold the pieced top to fit the batting,
smoothing it all together.
Then Ethel would open a shoebox in
which she had needles, thread, and scissors.
Unrolling exactly two arm lengths of thread, she’d double thread the
needle and start taking large stitches to sew the “quilt sandwich”
together. Row by row, Ethel stitched
and after four rows across the whole quilt, she’d carefully fold up the edge
and keep stitching. Sewing and folding,
kept her busy for over an hour and soon the last side was stitched. Ethel carefully put her supplies back in the
box, folded the quilt in half, and headed to her room. As she passed the nurses station, she’d stop
and say, “I’m finished with the tables now.
Thank you for letting me use them.”
That little lady sat in her room,
rocking and quilting the quilt without a hoop.
After a month or two, it was all finished. Surprisingly, there was never a tuck or overlap in the
backing. It was a perfect job. Ethel then sewed the binding on by
hand. First the backside was sewn down
and then she’d fold the binding to the front side and pin it down “so it
wouldn’t slip out of place.” Neat,
tiny, hidden, applique stitches were used to sew the top binding down. When Ethel said, “Well, it’s all finished”
we had to touch the binding to make sure it truly was sewn down.
Ethel reveled in the praise, but
would say, “Anyone could of done it. It
was nothing.” At 75 years old, she kept
herself busy making quilts until she had to have cataract surgery. In the eight years she was in the nursing
home, Ethel made 20 or more quilts, not taking a dime for any of them. The people who bought them paid the money
into her account so she was never without money for her supplies, personal needs,
and church donations.
A sweet little lady who was never
bored, her philosophy was, “Live life to its fullest, as there is so much to
see, do, and learn.”