Pearl Stadem-Ginther, Age 92, Tells About Carding Wool & Quilting on Plain View Farm
PLAIN VIEW FARM
PEARL'S STORIES:
Pearl Recalls Carding Wool and Quilting in the Old Way
Pearl has many memories of the sheep on Plain View Farm. Let's ask her a few questions and learn how they took care of the sheep and what good the sheep were to the Farm.
No. 1: What is your earliest memory of the sheep?
Pearl: When spring came, my dad said we're going to have to shear the sheep. So I would help him. He'd have more than 12 sheep, and every one had to be sheared. I was around eight years old.
No. 1: Did you like helping him?
Pearl: Yes, I did. We had to hold the sheep down. Sometimes we had to tie the legs so they couldn't get up while they were being sheared.
No: Why did they have to be sheared?
Pearl Oh, in So. Dakota they could never stand it, it was so hot in the summer. In wintertime it kept them warm, you know.
No. 5: Were the sheep scared by what you were doing to them?
Pearl: Yes, if it was the first time they were sheared. Otherwise they got used to it.
No. 6: How much wool did you get usually?
Pearl: I can't say. I would take what I wanted, enough to fill a washing machine up, and that much would stuff a quilt. They were the warmest quilts. I had one of Mama's quilts out here in Washington, and wanted to re-cover it when it got too worn, but someone got rid of it.
No. 7: How did you get the wool ready to be used?
Pearl: We washed it in the old-fashioned, hand-propelled washing machine. Then we rinsed it, and hung it out on the clothes line to dry. After it was dried, I would take parts of it and put it on my carder.
No. 8: Please describe the wool carder.
Pearl: A carder is like two square ping pong paddles with staples sticking out thickly on the insides of both paddles. They were exactly ten inches long by about five to six inches. I pulled the wool between the two to make it fine and nice, and then I twisted it in a round roll about ten inches long, made lots them, hundreds actually were needed to put in a quilt.
No. 9: What happened to the carders you used?
Pearl: I still have them. They show a lot of wear. It was hard work to use them.
No. 10: Now tell us how you made a quilt, please, from start to finish.
Pearl: My mother would take flour sacks, and wash and bleach them, and sew them together to the size of a quilt. It was fastened on to quilting frames we had placed on top of four chairs. The material was fastened to the frames. We then lay the rolls of wool the whole length of the quilt, in rows, side by side. Then we put another flour sack top over the wool, and we hand-stitched the whole thing, in and out, about an inch apart, to keep all the wool in place. This quilt was then given a nice covering material, top and bottom, and we took yarn and used a big needle and pulled it down through the quilt about inches apart and then tied the yarn on the top side. These quilts were light and very snug and warm.
No. 11: Did you just make them for the family?
Pearl: My mother would make extra quilts, one for each of us in the family. We all got one, as far as I recall. We made at least one quilt a year.
No. 12: Did your mother continue quilting after all you children grew up and flew from the nest?
Pearl: Oh, yes! She did a lot of quilting for years and years. At Bryant and Mobridge churches she attended she helped make countless quilts right into her nineties, even just before she died at age 98. She once said she didn't know what folks would be getting them, but she hoped they would go to the right place and be a blessing.
No. 13: You've continued the grand tradition. How many quilts do you make at Mt. View Lutheran Church where you've attended since 1942.
Pearl: We average about 200 a year, and sell some to make money to use to buy liner or stuffing material for quilts. People give us materials. I tear out the wires from donated old electric blankets and one electric blanket can be used to make two quilts. I have to yank and yank. Nobody cares to do it. It takes forever with a scizzor. They called me the "ripper." I use a ripper to get started, you see.
Pearl: They are sent off to World Relief. And each high school graduate from our church gets a quilt. They were each given a quilt, and were so happy, when the quilts were presented to the graduates at church. The quilts were made for girls or for boys, what they would like.
No. 15: The quilts are beautiful! How much are they in cost?
Pearl: I have never found out the cost.
No. 16: How often do you work on quilts at church?
Pearl: Every week throughout the year, except for holidays we don't meet. We average about nine women. We have three sewing machines going constantly, piecing the tops. We used colored sheets for the bottom, or other materials. I like to tie quilts. I do mostly the pressing of materials that we use. Nobody else likes to clean up afterwards, so I do the vacuuming, so that we leave the room the way we found it.
No. 17: How come men don't make quilts?
Pearl: I had a cousin, Bernard Stadem, who took wool and made yarn. He and his brother, with his mother helping, made quilts.
THANKS, PEARL, FOR THIS VERY FASCINATING ACCOUNT OF HOW YOU MADE WOOL AND HOW YOU AND THE FAMLY MADE QUILTS IN DAYS OF YORE!
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