Danner - Making a World of Difference One Quilt at a Time

Copyright 2015 by Ruth McHaney Danner

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Danner, Ruth McHaney, author.

Making a world of difference one quilt at a time : inspiring stories about quilters and how they have touched lives / Ruth McHaney Danner.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-60868-344-4 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-60868-345-1 (ebook) 1. Charities. 2. CharitiesUnited States. 3. QuiltersBiography. 4. QuiltersUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

HV27.D36 2015

361'.05dc23 2015027214

First printing, November 2015

ISBN 978-1-60868-344-4

Printed in the USA on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Mark Danner, my husband of thirty-nine years, who painstakingly searches for dropped needles, puts up with a quilt frame that invades our living space, and still manages to love quilts as much as I do

CONTENTS

White Settlement, Benbrook, Fort Worth, and Dallas, Texas

Spokane, Washington

Quad Cities (Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa; Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline, Illinois)

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Corvallis, Oregon

Charleston, South Carolina

Redlands, California

Jefferson City, Missouri; Syracuse, New York; Boca Raton, Florida; Springfield and Dayton, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; Rock Springs, Wyoming; Waterloo County, Iowa

Hudson River Valley, New York

Galesburg, Illinois; Spokane, Washington; Jackson, Michigan; New Orleans, Louisiana; Pensacola, Florida

Maplewood, Missouri; Indonesia

Boston, Nantucket Island, and Brookline, Massachusetts; Japan

Wells, Maine; around the world

Somers and Valhalla, New York

Orlando, Florida; Starkville, Mississippi; Panama

Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto, Ontario; Courtenay, British Columbia; Sub-Saharan Africa

Mt. Vernon, Arlington, and Granite Falls, Washington; Edgewood, Kentucky; Thailand; Korea; Mexico; Vietnam; Russia

Castle Hill, New South Wales, Australia

Eureka, Illinois; Judsonia, Arkansas; Nicaragua

Byron, Owasso, and Flint, Michigan

Clovis, California

Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Hanover, New Hampshire; Nampa, Idaho

Davison, Michigan; Denver, Colorado; Auburn, Maine

Suwanee and Atlanta, Georgia

Catahoula Parish, Louisiana

Jefferson City and Calwood Township, Missouri

Spokane, Washington; Searcy, Arkansas

Vancouver, Washington

Dearborn, Trenton, Taylor, Garden City, Grosse Point, Wyandotte, and Detroit, Michigan

Searcy, Arkansas

Washington, D.C.; Houston and Austin, Texas; Lansing, Michigan

Cheboygan and Pellston, Michigan

Columbus, Ohio; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Mecosta County, Michigan; Satellite Beach, Florida; Yancy and Mitchell Counties, North Carolina

Daytona Beach, Florida; Sacramento, California

Spokane, Washington

Lincoln, Nebraska

New Orleans, Louisiana; Blacksburg, Virginia; Aurora, Colorado; Newtown, Connecticut; Yarnell, Arizona; Oso, Washington

Salt Spring Island, British Columbia

Santa Cruz and Santa Clara, California

Spokane, Washington

Huntsville, Texas

Gees Bend and Montgomery, Alabama

Baton Rouge, Gonzales, and East Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Memphis, Tennessee; Encinitas, California

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Jenkins, Pequot Lakes, St. Paul, and Brainerd Lakes, Minnesota

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Connecticut

Reno, Nevada; New York, New York

Montana

Burleson and Houston, Texas

Bell County and Crawford, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada

Houston, Texas; Paducah, Kentucky

Los Angeles and Olema, California; Tucson, Arizona

Texas County, Missouri

What do quilters look like? A grandma in a rocking chair, with a thimble on her finger? Elderly ladies perched around a quilting frame, stitching and chatting?

Although some people still fit these traditional images, many others go far beyond. Todays quilters, young and old, lead busy lives. They have jobs outside the home in addition to family responsibilities. Somehow, during the kids soccer practice, at a lunch break, or late at night, they find time to add a few stitches to their newest creation.

Amazingly, they also find time to give away those creations once theyre finished.

This book presents quilters who do just that. The people featured here represent countless others, all of whom donate their skills to the benefit of humankind. Some do so with scrappy utility quilts, and some with dazzling works of art. Some make small-scale quilts; others go grand. Some do their quilting while the public looks on, and others remain anonymous.

While writing and interviewing, I came across several quilters and quilt lovers whose donations benefit various charities, but who did not want recognition. I raise my thimble in salute to them:

Two Texas women who have, over many years, stitched beautiful quilts for young mothers graduating from a drug-rehab program.

An Arkansas mother who, after tragically losing two sons, channeled her grief into quilts. Out of her own pocket, she secretly paid a years rent on a meeting room for her fledgling quilt group.

A woman in Nebraska whose apartment serves as an unofficial home for runaways. She welcomes occasional wayward youths for a night or two, then sends them on their way each with a new quilt.

A family who paid $325 for a baby quilt at an auction. The quilt itself, stitched by a good-hearted donor, might have been worth a third of that amount. Still, the family raised their bid again and again, knowing their donation would help to fund a scholarship at a small private university.

Members of a New York quilt guild who regularly give a stack of quilts to a womens center specializing in rape recovery.

A Massachusetts woman who organized friends to make quilts for all people injured at the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

A prominent author of quilt-themed novels who donates the proceeds from her speaking engagements to literacy programs and scholarships for librarians.

A small group in Indiana that makes quilts for all the members of each family receiving a Habitat for Humanity house in their county.