GIFTS FROM THE GREATEST GENERATION

Dust Between the Stitches: The Great Depression

By Cleo Lampos

A bundle of quilting materials derived from chicken feed bags and sugar sacks.  A trunk full of diaries and letters from Iowa dated throughout the decade of the 1930’s. From these humble scraps a story threaded its way into a book. An historic novel, Dust Between the Stitches, brings the dust storms and the desperation of the Great Plains farmers to life.

When my mother died in 1988, she left very little earthly goods behind. In a hall closet, we found a bag of muslin feed bags and flour sacks that were cut into 12-inch squares and firmly ironed. On many of these textural pieces, a transfer of a bird and flower was visible in faint blue ink. All 48 states were represented. I started to embroider the state flower/birds to complete the quilt. Significantly, I developed a curiosity about the quilting practices of the Great Depression and began an obsessive collection of quilts from that era. Several years ago, my granddaughter helped to finish this abbreviated version of the State Bird and Flower Quilt of the 1930’s.

The Bird and Flower Quilt created from feed sacks.

In an old trunk, a stash of diaries from my mother’s marriage lay under white linens with deep tatting on the edges. Married in June of 1930, my father and mother began their wedded bliss just as the drought hit the West and Great Plains. My father owned a drag-line and was able to find work as he dug irrigation ditches and spud cellars in Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. Twenty-three different addresses in five years, then they settled in Greeley, Colorado, with my kindergarten-aged brother.  Reading these diaries, letters from folks back in Iowa, and some newspaper articles, brought the heart ache, insecurities, and fear of the Dust Bowl into reality.

The Novel’s Characters Come Alive

Addy Meyers is a first-year teacher in a one room schoolhouse near Greeley, Colorado. She faces the Board of Education as they assess her teaching skills. The eighth-grade boys challenge her authority. The dust storms bring her to the reality of dust, pneumonia, and poverty.

Foreclosure of grandpa’s homestead threatens the security of Addy, grandpa and the two orphan children that Addy’s grandparents adopted. Jess Dettmann is a single man who helps them keep their wits and possibly the homestead. The homeless people who occupy the Hooverville nearby are introduced to Addy by Jess. Her compassionate heart reaches out to these resourceful families who have lost everything. Addy is shocked when she cans applesauce at the community canning center that other women are canning weeds to be eaten in the winter.

Creating a quilt from her Grandmother’s stash pile serves as a way for Addy to cope. Despair, dust, and drought weave through the Great Depression and Dust Bowl producing a fabric on which vivid threads of hope will appear. Will Addy save the farm, her job, and her heart on the Colorado ranch?

From Great Depression to Greatest Generation

The gifts of an unfinished quilt and a treasure trove of written accounts of a forgotten decade ignited my imagination. It is my wish that those who read this novel will realize that the children of the Dust Bowl grew up to be the members of The Greatest Generation. The children and young adults during the Great Depression learned to persevere in tough times and used those lessons in frugality all of their lives. We owe them a debt of gratitude that cannot be repaid.

Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Sam quilt that Addy created.

While teaching behavior disordered/emotionally disturbed students in a Chicago suburb, I discovered that historical fiction is an excellent way to learn about the issues and people of a time period. To help students write a book report on Dust Between the Stitches, an aid has been created. The insights help junior high and high school readers to understand the dust bowl’s uniqueness in the Great Depression, and to write an organized and thoughtful book report.

Cleo Lampos, M.Ed.

www.cleolampos.com

FB: Author Cleo Lampos

FB: Quilters: Mind, Heart and Soul

Books are available on amazon.com.