Quilters sew up tradition, stitch-by-stitch
Bobbie, Bessie, Susie, Ethel, Zelda.
Lovie, Alberta, Ollie, Ora, Pandora
Daisy, Lady, Florence, Willie, Bertha.
Arnesta, Edna, Pearlie, De Ella, Magnolia
These are the names of some of the Tutwiler Quilters who have come and gone — their names and pictures, pinned to a board inside the Tutwiler Community Education Center.
Mary Sue Robertson was the first.
Robertson lived in Sumner, a community about five miles from Tutwiler that was the site of the 1955 Emmett Till murder trial.
“She lived in a little shack behind some white people’s houses,” said Mary Willis Mackey, recalling the story of how the Tutwiler Quilters program came about. “I guess she was the maid at one time or something until she got too old to do anything, and all she did was sit at home and hand-piece quilts.”
All day, every day, Robertson sewed together colorful pieces of fabric and stacked them in her home and a nearby shed, often showing them to visitors, and usually giving them one to take home.
“She had stacks and stacks of quilts, and every time somebody went to her house, whenever she saw anybody, she wanted to show her quilt tops off,” Mackey said.
When Sister Maureen Delaney moved to town to help manage a social services program in Tutwiler, she met Robertson while assessing the needs of the townspeople.
“On her bed, she had all these quilt pieces just laying there,” said Mackey, who accompanied her to Robertson’s home.
Delaney purchased a quilt top from Robertson and an idea was born.
“Sister Delaney found out that a lot of people here in Tutwiler and in the surrounding towns knew how and loved to quilt,” said Mackey, who today refers to Robertson as the “mother founder of the quilts” and the inspiration for the Tutwiler Quilters, a program that has been ongoing for more than 20 years.
“From there, we started making quilts and selling them,” she said. “I enjoy hearing the ladies say, ‘I made quilts, and I bought me a car,’ or ‘I put my child through school.’ It was a job for them. That was something they could do and not have handouts. They could get out and do something for themselves and have money to support their families.”
It’s a nice income if you enjoy it, Mackey said.
“But you can’t find many people who want to do this because it’s a lot of needlepoint and sticking the fingers,” she said. “You have to have the patience and the time to do something like that. These days, you don’t find too many young people who want to get involved. They’re into speedy things.”
Delaney, executive director of the Tutwiler Community Education Center, said the Tutwiler Quilt Program was created in 1989 after learning about the area’s strong quilting tradition. Founders also wanted to create a money-making opportunity for local women and their families.
“The ladies piece and quilt on the African American quilting style,” said Delaney. “They take traditional patterns, and they improvise on them. They say they make them as the material speaks to them. It’s a way to preserve quilting in this area, and it’s a way for the ladies to make money for themselves and their families.”
When the program receives orders, quilters receive a packet of material and instructions about what to quilt. Customers may specify the colors they want. The ladies piece and quilt in their homes, then bring the items they have quilted back to the center to pick up more orders. Most of the fabric used has been donated.
The program produces a newsletter that generates orders. They also sell quilts at festivals, craft shows and church events. But program leaders have found that people outside of Mississippi are more impressed with quilting.
“The quilting tradition is strong here,” she said. “People look at things and say, ‘Isn’t that so pretty? My grandmother made these too.’ So if we want to sell them, we sell them outside of the state.”
Delaney said the Tutwlier Quilters have helped preserve the quilting tradition in Mississippi.
“I think they put a good face on Mississippi,” she said. “We sold them several years ago in the Smithsonian. We’ve been in two quilt museums — one in San Jose, California, and one in Colorado. People know about us.
“They know there’s these people in Tutwiler, a little town, and they are contributing to their own economic improvement, and also doing things of beauty. So when people see those quilts, they say our ladies are artists. I think they do help promote a good image of Mississippi and the people.”
Quilts created by the Tutwiler Quilters, members of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi, range in price from $80 to $400.
Located 70 miles south of Memphis, Tutwiler was named for a railroad surveyor. The community was incorporated in the 1890s, and it was a lively railroad town with as many as 23 passenger trains coming through a day before the railroads and the town declined.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2000 report, Tutwiler’s population is around 1,364. The median household income is $18,958 annually. Most who are employed work in manufacturing, education, health and social services.
Tutwiler has more single mothers with children under 18 than married couples of the same demographic, and around 100 grandparents in the town care for their grandchildren.
The largest number of residents 25 and older have less than a ninth grade education. Less than 100 people have any form of higher education. Only 6.9 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Lucinda Berryhill, an administrative assistant with the Tutwiler Education Center, has been working with the Tutwiler Quilters since the program was created.
Berryhill said the center began holding meetings in the late 1980s inviting women from Tutwiler and the surrounding communities to participate. Today, the quilters receive 80 to 85 percent of the proceeds, and they don’t have to wait for program leaders to sell the products to get paid. They bring in their work and are paid after it passes inspection.
“For some of them, this is their income,” said Berryhill. “We have two single moms who work in the program.”
Age doesn’t matter, but creativity does. Quilters may piece the quilt with a machine, but the finished product is hand sewn.
The program started with 24 quilters, and today there are 12.
“It’s kind of like a lost art, and what they are doing is keeping it alive,” said Berryhill.
Tutwiler is also the place of another art form. It’s where W. C. Handy discovered the blues in 1903. While sitting at the train station, he heard an unknown musician seated next to him sliding a knife blade down the strings of his guitar. That was Aleck Miller, a harmonica player also known as Sonny Boy Williamson, who is buried in the town. A map to his grave is painted on a series of murals there across from the Tutwiler Community Education Center.
The center, where the quilting program operates, has become the focal point of Tutwiler. It was established in 1993, and a gymnasium, funded by donors, was opened in 2010.
Bobbie Spears, who came to the center to have her work inspected and pick up more fabric, said she quilts because of the extra income it brings and the encouragement she receives from others about her work.
“Each time, you do a different pattern,” she said. “My sister used to say it looks like it’s been drawn. All them little pieces, they were put together by hand.”
Reola Hollins has been quilting for 17 years. Prior to joining the Tutwiler Quilters, she sewed wedding dresses and baby clothes.
“I heard about it from a friend girl,” she said. “I got interested in it. I’ve improved a lot.”
Susan Rogers is both the youngest Tutwiler Quilter and the quilter who has been with the program the longest. She became part of it at 16, and has stuck with it for 21 years. She completes about four or five quilts each month.
Rogers grew up watching her grandmother quilt by hand.
“At that time, she didn’t have a sewing machine,” said Rogers, 37. “She said, ‘I’m just making a quilt so I can be warm.’ It used to be so soft.”
Rogers decided to become part of the program when she heard about it.
“I wanted to see what I could do,” she said.
Given blocks to sew and later told to create designs, Rogers proved she could do it. Then she was given a pack of fabric and sent home to be creative.
“Over the years, I seem to have gotten better,” she said. “You got to have patience. I think that’s one of the reasons I started, because I have patience.”
Program leaders teach quilters what customers like and don’t like, she said.
“When I came here, I learned how to put the colors in the right order, how to do the patterns,” she said. “This year, I’m learning how to do strips and loving it. All the quilters have a little test to do. Once we succeed in that test, we go on to the next.”
Rogers said she enjoys pleasing customers.
“I’m the kind of quilter who wants to do what you like,” she said. “Some quilters are like: ‘This is the design you’re going to get.’ I like to just give the people what they want.”
Rogers said she learned more about quilting by reading books and watching television shows on the subject.
“Other quilters may design it on paper,” she said. “Me, myself, I just do it out of my head. I know I want the star in the center, or I want it going all around. I like fall colors and the bright colors. I look at the design and, whatever comes to mind, I do it. When I do quilts, I do it mostly from my heart.”
Rogers said she’s learned a lot over the years about the quilting process, which is a lot like life.
“When I was 16, if I got turned down, it hurt so bad,” she said. “I had to go home and cry if I did it wrong. Now, if I do something wrong, I go home, and I make it better. So I always tell Sister Joann (Blomme) it’s good to let me know my mistakes.”
Rogers said she’s watched many quilters come and go over the years.
“We’re still pushing on,” she said. “It’s like when I first got here, there were so many of us. The people we have now, it’s like we are getting better and better, every year.
“I’ve grown to love my work. I love to see people’s expressions, and when they write, it’s exciting. The last stitching of the quilt, I feel so proud.”
