Memories - grace grits and gardening

Q is for Quilt

April 19, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

quilted by John’s Grandmother Siebenmorgen

Our home is filled with vintage quilts,

each a beautiful piece of artwork,

each as unique as the woman behind the craft.

Within the tight stitches, family history lives,

thoughts and feelings woven into cotton,

conversations trapped between layers of fabric.

Blankets of love to keep us warm.

Old and frayed, more precious than gold.

quilted by Pauline Boerner (my mother-in-law)

quilted by my aunts –
Virgie Johnson Stubbs & Rena Johnson Kennedy

Turtle Quilt
quilted by Nana (Frances Johnson Creecy)

talya

When we make something it holds more than just the materials we use. – Miss Henrietta, Flights of Fancy by Crow Johnson Evan
Musical Pairing:

I’ll Be Seeing You, Rosemary Clooney

P.S. all these quilts were made in Arkansas:)

Blogging my way through the alphabet…
A to Z April Blog Challenge. Q is for Quilt.

P is for Penpal

April 18, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Did you ever have a penpal?

I connected with my penpal via Tiger Beat, my favorite teeny bopper magazine which I devoured each month cover-to-cover primarily to monitor the activities of my puppy love Donny Osmond.

Be.Still.My.Heart. ♡♡♡Yes, in the 1970’s, Tiger Beat had a penpal section, pages of names and addresses of kids who wanted to be matched with a friend on the other side of the planet. Yes, in the 1970s, people wrote letters by hand with real paper and ink……

Living on the opposite side of the world, my Australian penpal was exotic. At Christmas when our farm was buried under two feet of snow, she was snorkeling and swimming at a sandy Melbourne beach. How cool was that?

Turns out even with our obvious geographical differences, we had much in common. My birthday was July 10, hers July 11, one year later. Same astrological sign!

We wrote to each other for years. Faithfully. The sheer anticipation of receiving a letter postmarked Airmail with interesting stamps for my collection was thrilling. When a thick letter arrived filled with pages and pages written in her perfect, neat printing, I skipped supper to read it over and over again. I stayed up late writing my response, hoping my life sounded interesting, knowing my letter, my words would travel over the ocean to a place I could only dream to go.

My penpal was much better than a diary, because she responded. Faithfully. We shared secrets and crazy family stories. We exchanged birthday and Christmas gifts and even had matching necklaces. We discussed boys. Do you think he likes me?

Turns out there was a big world beyond Mississippi County, Arkansas.

And then with no further discussion or thought or final farewell, our correspondence ended. We grew older. We left home. One of us stopped, and the other was too busy to be concerned. Had I known my last letter was the final one, I may have said something important. But probably not.

I’ve often wondered what happened to Anne Cardow. I ran across her picture a few weeks ago in my desk drawer at home in Arkansas. I still have some of her letters written in perfect, neat printing.

Are you still out there Anne? It’s me, Talya.I’m still here.

Anne Cardow
My Australian Penpal

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening

Musical Pairings:

Somewhere Out There, Linda Ronstadt, James Ingram

Puppy Love, Donny BeStillMyHeart Osmond:))

A to Z April Blog Challenge. P is for Penpal. And puppy love?

N is for Nana ❤❤❤

April 16, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Nana and Me

“Do you have any gum, Nana?” The pew was hard, the sermon dull, my right foot dead asleep.

Digging in her pocketbook, Nana pulled out sticks of Spearmint gum to occupy my sister and me for a few moments. I tried not to smack.

“Draw.A.Duck.” I mouthed the words silently and handed her an offering envelope from the pew in front of me. Offering envelopes were stored beside the hymnals and made good scrap paper in a pinch.

With one sweep of a pencil, Nana had this silly way of drawing a duck. Her signature artwork looked more swan or turkey-like than duck-like, which amplified the funny factor ten-fold during preaching, or during any serious occasion when laughing was frowned upon.

“That doesn’t look like a duck, Nana,” my sister murmured, trying to stifle her laugh which sent us, Nana included, head first into a fit of silent giggles, shoulder-shaking giggles, the sort often mistaken for sobbing—as though we could be wholly moved by Brother Brown’s boring message…

From the piano bench, Momma shot us the stink-eye, but she wanted to laugh too. Nana had that effect on everyone.