Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
Below article taken from the booklet: "Growing Up On Coker Creek, A History of Arts & Crafts through Mountain Heritage," by Leslie Copeland-Wells, 2008:
"Gladys Stewart, Quilt Maker---Brought into the world by midwife to Ruby McJunkin Shaw and Frank Shaw, Gladys Shaw Stewart grew up a happy girl on Coker Creek Mountain [Monroe Co. TN]. Frank was a construction worker for TVA public works who was gone from home during the week and home on weekends. Ruby was a housewife raising seven children, five boys and two girls, Gladys being the oldest child. With Frank gone most of the time, Ruby counted on Gladys' help with the younger siblings. They had a close bond and the family was a happy one. Gladys attended Sandy Lane School through the 5th grade, when she made the decision to leave to help her mother full time. Sandy Lane was a one-room schoolhouse for her first year, growing to a two-room schoolhouse thereafter. Grades 1 through 8 were taught in those two small rooms. Gladys especially remembers one day in school, her teacher, Maggie Payne, came in with the Knoxville newspaper, holding up the front page of the paper to show the class; World War II had begun. The date was September 1, 1939.
Gladys' family owned 40 acres of land where they raised produce, walnuts and hickory nuts, kept one cow for milk and butter and one cow and one pig for meat. Frank had a smokehouse for curing the beef and pork and he made sausage with lots of pepper, just as Gladys loved it! Produce was raised and canned for winter storage with a mule used to plow the land. Tobacco was raised some years to assist in income for the family. In summer, the cows grazed for food. Winter feed, however, was the tops of the corn and the fodder or greens raised during the summer. One of Gladys' chores was milking the cow everyday. She had a method of keeping the cow settled whilst milking and that was to give her a bucket of cut weeds to eat while she was milked.
Ruby, like many women on the mountain, sewed all the clothes for the family. Fabrics for the most part came from Watson's peddler truck, although she got creative when need be. She saved all the cloth she could, like the backs of the boys' blue jeans, because the fronts were too worn, which served to make quilts sewn from strips of the jean. Course thread or twine from flour and grain sacks served as thread. Gladys' family even had a radio, which they ordered from the Sears catalog and was picked up at Murphy's Store and Post Office. Batteries for the radio were purchased at Murphy's Store, and were VERY heavy!
Gladys' playtime, most often Saturday afternoons, was usually spent with Lester Taylor's girls from next door. They climbed trees, where reportedly none were too big; they played house in the woods and collected eggs from the ducks at the pond, all the while her little brothers with them so she could keep an eye on them. She also recalls receiving two dolls, one porcelain from the church and one very fragile celluloid doll that Maggie Payne gave her.
Gladys recalls as a young lady, she and her sister, Grace, would go with the neighbor girls, Avis, Emma Sue and Janice Taylor and Carroll White's girls, Armelia, Aretta and June, to church to meet boys. She recalls all of the girls sitting in one pew and the boys would sit in the pew directly behind. After the sermon or function was over, as the girls filed out of the pew, the boys would ask if they could walk the girls home. Sometimes they'd say yes. Courting consisted of meeting most times at church, as the church sponsored most events in the community. There would be candy (taffy) pulling, hay rides, revivals or fundraisers. Fundraisers often were pie suppers, where the women baked a pie that would be auctioned off and the highest bidder won a date with the girl who baked it. "Dates" were walking and talking, maybe a ride home in the boy's truck, often times it would be a logging truck as that was the main industry on the mountain.
At age 17, Gladys and her mother, Ruby, who were always very close, went to Englewood, Tennessee, and stayed at a rooming house during the week while working at John Adams sewing factory for 40 cents per hour. They did this for approximately 2 1/2 years. After that time, they went to North Carolina to work, when Ruby decided to come back home to the mountain. Gladys' sister came to stay and work with her.
Quilting came later to Gladys. She married and stayed close with her family, life moving on, when eventually her husband took ill and she quit work to attend him. She needed something to occupy her idle hands and she dicovered quilting books. She thought, "I can do that," and bought one new book per month. She and her mother would work together on the quilts, her mother piecing the tops and Gladys doing the actual quilting. She enjoyed it so much that she kept learning and advancing her technique. She has since made dozens of quilts, selling them to family and friends and giving them as gifts. Gladys' husband passed in 1990, yet Ruby lived with Gladys until her passing at age 95 in 1994. Gladys now has a home on property shared with her son and his family in Coker Creek.
And the next generation takes root."
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:No followups yet |
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/stewart/messages/15313.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|