Mrs. Parker's Quilt Business

 

Good morning and happy Monday!

I love old articles about quilters because I like to learn about their perspective and also discover what kinds of quilts they made.

In 1946, The Cleburne News ran an article about Mrs. Loumandy Parker of Edwardsville, Alabama and her quilt business.  

Mrs. Parker was suffering from neuritis in the muscles which the article attributed to hard quilting.  It was reported that she had made 300 quilts in the last 3 years.  Her 15 year old daughter Juanita assisted her and so sometimes did her husband when he wasn't busy farming.  The family lived in a log cabin.  

The business came about only 7 years earlier when Mrs. Parker hung out some of the quilts she had made that the family wasn't using.  The quilts initially sold for $5, then $7 gradually rising to as high as $15.  The $15 price would equal about $207 today; $7 would equal about $69.

Some of the patterns she favored were:

Mrs. Parker also designed her own quilt patterns (no photo unfortunately).   According to the article,  she designed a quilt called "Water Lilies and Swans"  after seeing some of the swans in an nearby waterway.  Another pattern was called "Morning Star" while a third she used for children's quilts and depicted baby chicks eating out of a pan.

Although she was described as gentle and grey-haired, she had her limits.

"If it were not for the fact that Mrs. Loumandy Parker was a good Christian woman and a kindly soul to boot, she would pay her respects to the makers of tufted chenille bedspreads with a snort of derision, thus 'Hmpf!'"

Tomorrow I'll talk about the lesson I learned from Mrs. Parker.

Have a safe and happy day!