MS. HARTWELL: Okay, I was born into a family of farmers. My grandfather owned quite a bit of land; so, we all lived together, more or less, because it was all connected land. And as his children got married, they went to live on part of the land, or they married someone who was attached to that land. So the land turned into be something like 200 acres, which he already had, and it just was very large. And this was a very good childhood because all the women did some type of needlework or some type of craft. Most of the men were storytellers, so that my life was rich with oral history, was rich with sewing, and just church going and just day-to-day existence on a farm.

MS. MALARCHER: What kind of needlework did they do?

MS. HARTWELL: They did quilting; they made their own clothes, and they would take the- feed bags and turn them into - or flower sack, these huge sacks that flower came in or grain, and they would bleach it and make things like table clothes and napkins and doilies and things like that. My mother was also a very good crochet artist; I'll put it, because she made some wonderful things, table clothes and stuff like that.

MS. MALARCHER: Well, when they made quilts, were they making them for beds or were they making quilts to hang on the wall?

MS. HARTWELL: They were making them for utilitarian uses. But the interesting thing about that is that the quilt tops all had stories within themselves because no fabric was ever purchased for these quilts. So that the quilt was made from parts of fabric leftover for sewing or someone would donate a piece of a garment that was saved from a worn out coat dress whatever, so that's what was on top of the quilts. And so, -- no they didn't hang them but still they were sacred because they were one generation to another generation; you could look on there and see a part of your great grandmother down to the latest child being born.
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