Harriet Weber and Sally Patton

[00:02] HARRIET WEBER: Hi. My name is Harriet Weber. I'm 65 years old, and today is Wednesday, July 20, 2022. And I'm here in the Heritage barn in Quincy Valley, Washington. The name of my interview partner today is Sally Patton, and my relationship to her is a longtime community member.

[00:22] SALLY PATTON: Hello. My name is Sally Patton, and I'm 76 years old, and today's date is Wednesday, July 20, 2022. We're in Quincy Valley, Washington, and my interview partner is Harriet Weber, and we're longtime friends here in Quincy.

[00:45] HARRIET WEBER: Great. Well, Sally, thank you so much for being here today and being willing to share some of your life and especially the story of your family's quilt. So, I have a lot of questions I have for you, and I'd like to start out today by having you tell us a little bit about your growing up and where you were born, where you grew up, maybe a little bit about your family.

[01:11] SALLY PATTON: Okay. Well, I was born in Seattle, Washington, and my dad always wanted to farm. And in 1937, he bought 80 acres of land 4 miles south of Quincy. And in 1946, we moved over here to stay. And I now live in the house that I grew up in and went to kindergarten through high school here in quincy and married my high school sweetheart. We had three children. They're all married and gone. And that brings us to today. I think that's great.

[01:51] HARRIET WEBER: When you said your dad bought some land here, did he know that irrigation was coming in? Is that why he decided he wanted to try to farm here?

[01:59] SALLY PATTON: Yes. He knew that. Yeah. That it was coming. In fact, I don't know what year it was, but a train was commissioned from Seattle to bring landowners over here to vote on whether they wanted water or not. And so mom and dad were on that train.

[02:18] HARRIET WEBER: Oh, really?

[02:19] SALLY PATTON: And up in the archives in the attic are the stubs from those tickets really coming over here?

[02:28] HARRIET WEBER: I've seen a newspaper article, and they all went to Conrad Weber's house and.

[02:31] SALLY PATTON: Voted yes, they did.

[02:33] HARRIET WEBER: Wow. And I believe that was in the mid thirties.

[02:36] SALLY PATTON: Well, it could be.

[02:37] HARRIET WEBER: Wow. So, how old were you when you moved over here?

[02:42] SALLY PATTON: I was six months old.

[02:43] HARRIET WEBER: Okay.

[02:44] SALLY PATTON: Yeah.

[02:45] HARRIET WEBER: So, what were your earliest memories of being here in Quincy?

[02:49] SALLY PATTON: Um, just playing out on the farm. We had horses, and all my brothers had horses, and so that was the horses, and the dogs were probably my best friends at that time. When I was little, little grandma found some rhubarb wine in the basement one time, and she brought it upstairs, and she soaked it in bread, and she took me, and we went out and gave it to the roosters, and it made the roosters drunk. So that is a memory that I have of the farm.

[03:33] HARRIET WEBER: Did she know that would happen?

[03:35] SALLY PATTON: She knew it would, sure.

[03:36] HARRIET WEBER: Oh, my gosh. So is she kind of a spunky grandma?

[03:40] SALLY PATTON: No, not really. She was. She was. She had a sense of humor, but, yeah.

[03:47] HARRIET WEBER: Wow.

[03:48] SALLY PATTON: I won't go into that now, but. Oh, there are stories that she pulled on one of her brothers that would just really make you laugh. Yeah.

[03:59] HARRIET WEBER: Well, that would have been quite a memory, though. Yeah. So then tell us a little bit about going through school here in Quincy.

[04:09] SALLY PATTON: Well, I started kindergarten in the basement of a church and misses Keatley was our teacher, and several of us went k through twelve together here in Quincy. And I do have some pictures of that. And met my husband, of course, here. And he was going to college at WSU, and I was a senior in high school as a cheerleader. And I thought that was a big deal that my college boyfriend and I as a cheerleader were dating. And anyway, we ended up getting married.

[04:51] HARRIET WEBER: Did you get married right out of high school for you?

[04:54] SALLY PATTON: No, I went to beauty school, and so I was in Seattle again for a year, and then we got married, and then he got drafted, and so he was in the army for four years.

[05:08] HARRIET WEBER: Is that Vietnam?

[05:09] SALLY PATTON: Vietnam.

[05:12] HARRIET WEBER: Did he actually serve on the ground over there?

[05:19] SALLY PATTON: He was in the army security agency, and so he worked on teletype machines. That's what they had at the time. There weren't computers yet, so, no, he wasn't a ground pounder.

[05:33] HARRIET WEBER: But was he in Vietnam or was that on stateside?

[05:37] SALLY PATTON: No, he was in Vietnam. He was at play Ku.

[05:42] HARRIET WEBER: Did you know him all through school? Was he one of those twelve year students with you or when did he come?

[05:49] SALLY PATTON: Well, he came in the second grade, so I would have been in kindergarten, but I really didn't get to know him until I was probably in junior high school.

[06:01] HARRIET WEBER: And how many years have you been married now?

[06:04] SALLY PATTON: 57.

[06:05] HARRIET WEBER: Wow. And how did it come about that you're living in the house that you grew up in?

[06:14] SALLY PATTON: He was working in Ephrata, and we were living on a section of the farm then. And when mom died, she gave each of us a third of the farm, and the house was on my third and my brothers didn't want it. And so that's how we came to move in there. But I'm as home as I can get.

[06:38] HARRIET WEBER: Yes, you are. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about you going into beauty school and how that played out in your life as a career.

[06:50] SALLY PATTON: Well, I graduated from beauty school Les was in the army, and I worked in a salon in Georgia, Augusta, Georgia, for a while, and that was really interesting. And that was in the sixties. And I remember there was a black lady that worked in our shop, and she always fixed our perm trays and cleaned up for us and everything. And I asked her if we could do her hair as kind of a thank you, you know, for everything she did for us. And she said, oh, no, she had her own beauty shop to go to. Well, I didn't understand. What is it, segregation? Yeah, at the time, but I just remember how nice she was. And then, let's see, I worked in California for a while. Les was still in the army, so.

[07:55] HARRIET WEBER: Was he in the army when you were in Augusta, Georgia?

[07:57] SALLY PATTON: Uh huh.

[07:57] HARRIET WEBER: Okay.

[07:59] SALLY PATTON: Yeah, he was taking his training for Vietnam is what he was doing. Yeah.

[08:07] HARRIET WEBER: So Georgia and then California, and then.

[08:12] SALLY PATTON: He was sent to Germany for the last ten months of his service, and they wouldn't command sponsor me to go, which is paying your way, unless he reenlisted. And he didn't want to reenlist. Four years was enough. And so I stayed home. We had a baby boy at that time. Scott was only seven weeks old when he left for Germany. And then when he got out of the army, we went to Ellensburg, and he finished his degree at central.

[08:48] HARRIET WEBER: And what did he get his degree in?

[08:51] SALLY PATTON: Well, it was in psych and soche, but he never used that. He eventually, he worked for his dad in the tire store here in Quincy for a while, and when his dad was wanting to sell it, he didn't want to buy it, and so he went to work for the sheriff's department, and he was the head jailer at. For Grant county, and then he became. I can't think of what I want to say.

[09:34] HARRIET WEBER: In probation or.

[09:36] SALLY PATTON: Yeah, he was in probation and parole, so he had the afraid of Moses Lake and Othello offices, and then he retired.

[09:52] HARRIET WEBER: So when you ended up coming back to Quincy, then, was that after Germany?

[09:59] SALLY PATTON: No, I was here while he was in Germany.

[10:01] HARRIET WEBER: And then did he come back to Quincy and then you stayed here?

[10:05] SALLY PATTON: We went to Ellensburg, and he finished college there.

[10:08] HARRIET WEBER: Okay.

[10:09] SALLY PATTON: Then we came back to Quincy, so.

[10:13] HARRIET WEBER: And you had one little boy by that time?

[10:15] SALLY PATTON: Well, I had twins by then. I. Okay, when we came back to Quincy. Yeah, the twins weren't quite two, so.

[10:25] HARRIET WEBER: And when did you start your beauty salon here in Quincy?

[10:31] SALLY PATTON: Well, I worked at Ned's beauty salon for a while, and we rented a station from her, three of us, and then we moved downtown and rented a building, and there were three of us working in there, too, and we were there for. Well, I worked with this one gal for 18 years, so I'm not sure how many years we were downtown. And then I decided to open a shop at home. So we had a friend come and knock out a wall into one of the bedrooms right off the porch, and I made that into my salon, and I worked there for nine years, and then I retired when Les retired. 40 years of doing hair. It was 40 years.

[11:35] HARRIET WEBER: Wow. Well, one of the most important things we're going to talk about today is a quilt that you have that's in your possession, that is a legacy quilt in your family. And so I'm hoping to be able for you to share the story of that. Tell us a little bit, first of all, about the quilt, and then we'll get into how you obtained it.

[12:01] SALLY PATTON: Okay. So you want to know kind of the size and the history of the quilt first? Yes.

[12:08] HARRIET WEBER: And what kind of a quilt it is.

[12:10] SALLY PATTON: Okay.

[12:11] HARRIET WEBER: And when it was made, and.

[12:13] SALLY PATTON: Well, I think they call it chintz fabric that it was made out of, and it was a very expensive fabric. And when the. Excuse me. When the ships would come in on the east coast, I was told that the women would go right down to the ships and go through the fabric that they had, and they would pick what they wanted. And these had to be women that had money because it was expensive fabric, and that's where this came from. And they think that it was made. The fabric was made in England. So.

[12:58] HARRIET WEBER: And it's a pretty large quilt.

[13:00] SALLY PATTON: Yeah.

[13:01] HARRIET WEBER: So it fits on.

[13:02] SALLY PATTON: It's about king size.

[13:04] HARRIET WEBER: Okay.

[13:04] SALLY PATTON: Yeah.

[13:05] HARRIET WEBER: And it's all hand quilted. Correct. So all the stitching in it was all done with needle and thread.

[13:12] SALLY PATTON: Right.

[13:13] HARRIET WEBER: And the date of the quilt, do you know?

[13:16] SALLY PATTON: Well, they think that it's about 1823, circa 1823. So I had an appraisal. I had it appraised. And so the appraisers, you know, go through other quilts that were made during that time period, and there's similarities in the design, in the fabric, and that was all about 18, early 1820s.

[13:47] HARRIET WEBER: And does that quilt have a particular name? Don't they call that style of quilt a particular name?

[13:53] SALLY PATTON: Yeah, it's a brodery. I'm saying it wrong probably, but I call it a brodery purse.

[13:57] HARRIET WEBER: Okay. I think it's a french word, isn't it?

[14:01] SALLY PATTON: French phrase, could be, yeah. But what they would do is they would take a background fabric and they would stretch it out and then they would take a. The chintz. Now, I think that's the chintz that had the design in it, and they would cut the designs out, and then they would glue it down to the background fabric, and then when that was dry, then they would hand embroider it all, all the way around, kind of like needle turn. And it would take a long, long time to do that. And some people have suggested that it could be that if they had slaves, they would even have some of the slave women work on these quilts at least some of the time.

[14:52] HARRIET WEBER: So the place where this quilt originated from is where do you think?

[14:58] SALLY PATTON: It's on the east coast. And I know that it was taken from a home in Georgia on Sherman's march to the sea. And so it was. We don't know. It was. It had to be somewhere where the ships came in and unloaded.

[15:18] HARRIET WEBER: So that's amazing. So how did it get in your family? What is the family connection to this quilt?

[15:27] SALLY PATTON: Well, an uncle by marriage. His name was Leland Bull, but in the 1930s, he changed it to Buell, but it was his grandfather. He was in the Civil War, and he was from Illinois. And I know that he was at Vicksburg. This man, his name's James Bullae, is the man that took the quilt. But he was at Vicksburg. And then he evidently went into Georgia and was assigned to William Tecumseh Sherman's men on the march to the sea. And he took that quilt from some home in Georgia, and we don't know where, but that's what the family says, that he took it from a home in Georgia on Sherman's march to the sea. Then they came on around through the Carolinas at the end of the war, and then they were released from the army in 1865. And it says that he took the quilt back to Illinois. Now, I don't know how he would have kept that quilt all through Georgia and back up to Illinois. It's always made me wonder if maybe he didn't have mail it back. I don't know. I have no idea.

[17:03] HARRIET WEBER: Well, some of these are, you know, history mysteries to be solved. But is he a relation to you, then?

[17:14] SALLY PATTON: Not a blood relation, but he was. Okay. My aunt's husband's grandfather, so. And he. And he was. Lee Buell was my aunt Margaret's second husband.

[17:29] HARRIET WEBER: Okay. And how did you find out about the quilt originally?

[17:34] SALLY PATTON: Okay, well, mom and dad and I went to Tacoma to visit Aunt Margaret and Uncle Lee. And Margaret was so excited when mom got there. And she says, emma, you have got to come upstairs and see what Lee just acquired from his family. And so we go charging upstairs. They were in an old fashioned two story house in Tacoma. And we went in there and she says, and she's already getting into the attic to dig out this quilt. And she says, lee's grandfather was in the civil war, and he took it from a burning home in Georgia on Sherman's march to the sea. And he had had it all those years. I don't know how he got it back, but he did. And then it was handed down to Uncle Lee from his family. And then later, oh, and I didn't stay to look at the quilt. I was 1112 years old. And just looking at an old blanket didn't really interest me a whole lot. So I went downstairs and went to play with the girl next door. But I wish I would have stayed. But anyway, then Lee handed it down to his daughter, the only child that he had with his first marriage. And so she treasured it. And they went to Arizona, she and her husband, and she put it in the Arizona quilt project. I got the book right there. So it's in there. And it gives the same story that I remember Aunt Margaret telling mom upstairs is the story that's in the book. So as, as a young girl, I remembered that story correctly.

[19:34] HARRIET WEBER: What decade was the Arizona quilt project book?

[19:38] SALLY PATTON: I think in the early nineties, like 91, something like that.

[19:42] HARRIET WEBER: So. And can you, I remember you telling me about how quilts were submitted for that project. So can you briefly just kind of say how that worked?

[19:56] SALLY PATTON: I don't know if it started out with 7000 quilts, but they narrowed it down to 3000, and then they went through it again. That's all in the book. So I could be giving you a little misinformation there. But then it was narrowed down to 56 or seven, and they are the ones that were chosen for the book. And this quilt that I now have was one of those. So it was submitted for the Arizona quilt project.

[20:34] HARRIET WEBER: So it is a significant textile.

[20:36] SALLY PATTON: Yes.

[20:37] HARRIET WEBER: And has been said so, you know, appraised.

[20:42] SALLY PATTON: So it's really interesting to hear what the adjudicators thought of these Brodery purse quilts. I think there were three of them that were accepted into the quilt project, but, yeah.

[20:57] HARRIET WEBER: So not being a direct relative then, of your Uncle Lee. Right. And then his daughter had it, how in the world did it end up in your possession?

[21:09] SALLY PATTON: Well, she died and she had given it to a stepson, and I didn't know where he was. I knew his name, but that was about it. And I was watching antique roadshow one night, and on there they had a quilt from the Civil War, and they said that it was worth over $100,000. I remember that, and it just about floored me. So I started thinking about Uncle Lee's quilt, and I thought, they've passed away. The house has been sold. All the contents are gone. What happened to that quilt? Did the kids take it to goodwill? Did they put it in the garbage, or does somebody have it? So I got on the phone and I called one of the relatives, and I said, rosalynn, do you have any idea where that quilt is? And she says, well, I think Ted Richards has it, and they live in California. And so she gave me the address and phone number, and I called them, and he said, yes, he says, we have it, you know, because Marjorie had died, Lee's daughter. And he says, we just moved. So he says, it's in a box in the garage. And I thought, no. So I asked him some questions about it, and he said, well, he thought it was red, white, and blue, and it was a big quilt. And I said, well, is there any way I could have a picture of it? And he said, well, it was put in that Arizona quilt project, and if you could get a hold of somebody that worked on the project, they could probably give you more information about it. And so I did, and I got ahold of this lady, and she said, well, I know someone that has a copy of that book that lives in South Carolina. And she says, I will contact her and see if she would be willing to sell it. And so she did, and the lady sold it, and I have the book. And so you got the book, but.

[23:34] HARRIET WEBER: How did you get the quilt?

[23:35] SALLY PATTON: Oh, the quilt.

[23:37] HARRIET WEBER: So here we go. That's okay.

[23:41] SALLY PATTON: So years went by because I didn't think they wanted to get rid of the quilt, and I was scared to death to ask for it or to buy it or anything. And then something came up, and I was talking about that quilt. I think it was my cousin Pam said, well, you ought to just call them or write them a letter and see what their plans are for the quilt. And so that's what I did. A few years had gone bye, and this lady said, well, she was going to talk to her stepdaughter about it. She has a PhD in education and works in Seattle, and she was going to ask her if she would like to have it. And she says, basically, she said, I don't know anything about you. And so she was going to talk to Diane. So I talked to Diane, and she's.

[24:55] HARRIET WEBER: The one in Seattle, correct?

[24:56] SALLY PATTON: She's the one in Seattle, and she's the one that gave it to me.

[25:01] HARRIET WEBER: Oh, really?

[25:02] SALLY PATTON: She thought that they could entrust it to me, and they said, all we would like is for it to end up out here on the west coast somewhere, so we could go and visit it once in a while. But it needs to be put in a museum where it will really be taken care of eventually.

[25:25] HARRIET WEBER: So how have you taken care of it? And how many years ago was that, that you took possession of it?

[25:31] SALLY PATTON: I think it was 17, 2017. I think that's when it was. I just have it in an acid free box, and I've got acid free tissue paper around it, and I just keep, try to keep it in a nice, dry place. But the people that had it in California in that box in their garage, they had a water leak, and that quilt got wet. And so if you look at it now, you can see that there's mildew on it. But then somebody else made me feel a little better about it and said, well, that's just part of its story.

[26:11] HARRIET WEBER: It is, and it's amazing to me. I mean, so we're approaching 200 years.

[26:17] SALLY PATTON: Yes.

[26:17] HARRIET WEBER: Old on this garment. And so it's really in a remarkable shape for being almost 200 years old. So what do you see as your legacy with this quilt? What will you do with it?

[26:35] SALLY PATTON: Well, eventually I do want to put it in a museum, but I'm being kind of stingy with it right now. I'm having a lot of fun just having it. But it does need to go somewhere where it would really be safe.

[26:53] HARRIET WEBER: It would be wonderful if there was some way to verify, you know, that it was on Sherman's march to the sea that was taken from a home there, because that would be quite significant along there in Georgia. So. Yeah.

[27:06] SALLY PATTON: Well, all we have is James Will's word for it, the soldier that he took it from there.

[27:13] HARRIET WEBER: Right.

[27:15] SALLY PATTON: I know where he's buried now, and I know what cemetery he's in.

[27:19] HARRIET WEBER: And is he in the south? Buried in the south?

[27:22] SALLY PATTON: No, he's in. Oh, no. Is it Ohio somewhere? Right in there.

[27:30] HARRIET WEBER: Okay.

[27:31] SALLY PATTON: I can look for it still on the east and check it out for you.

[27:34] HARRIET WEBER: Yeah, yeah. So why are quilts fascinating to you? Do you produce quilts yourself?

[27:40] SALLY PATTON: Yes, I do.

[27:42] HARRIET WEBER: So tell me a little bit about quilt, the quilts that you've made and why you like quilting, and it's just.

[27:49] SALLY PATTON: A hobby, you know, I don't do it to sell. I give them as gifts just to create something. And it's fun to work with the colors.

[27:59] HARRIET WEBER: And how did you get into doing that?

[28:02] SALLY PATTON: Well, I have a friend from Olympia, and her husband was a state patrolman, and he had to go to Spokane on business for three days. And so she came and stayed with me, and I had ruptured my Achilles tendon, and I was in a boot. And so just to keep me entertained, she says, let's make a baby quilt. And she'd gotten into it, and I had a new granddaughter, and so we made her a little baby quilt, a little trip around the world. And that was my first one. And it was so much fun that I started making quilts upstairs in my house. And then I didn't have enough room. And then this friend Sandy and I bought a long arm quilting machine together, a used one, and it was in our dining room for a while. And I think my husband thought it was going to be in there the rest of his natural life if he didn't get it out of the house somehow. So he built a big garage, and in one end of the garage he built me a sewing studio. And so it went out there, and I've just been making quilts ever since.

[29:20] HARRIET WEBER: So you do your own long arm quilting then? So. And, I mean, we're not talking a small machine here. This is a.

[29:27] SALLY PATTON: It's a large machine that has a twelve foot table.

[29:30] HARRIET WEBER: Yeah. So how many quilts do you think you've produced? Because you didn't start this when you were young, right? You were already a grandmother?

[29:43] SALLY PATTON: Yeah, I was a brand new grandmother, and Amy is 25 now, so about that 25 years.

[29:52] HARRIET WEBER: So how many do you think you've produced?

[29:55] SALLY PATTON: I don't know, 70 maybe.

[30:03] HARRIET WEBER: Did you ever hand quilt any of them, or have they all been long arm quilted?

[30:08] SALLY PATTON: They've all been long arm quilted. I do a lot of blanket stitch embroidery, but no, I haven't hand quilted anything. So the binding is about as, which.

[30:27] HARRIET WEBER: Is a lot of work to put.

[30:29] SALLY PATTON: The binding on is about all I have done by hand.

[30:36] HARRIET WEBER: So tell me some of your favorite quilts you've produced and who you gave them to.

[30:42] SALLY PATTON: Oh, one that I did, and I've kept that one. But it's the underground railroad quilt, and it's got, I think, ten different blocks on that. And each one was to represent a message to the fleeing slaves on the underground railroad. And that one was hung in one of the banks in Quincy for a while. But it's just interesting where did you.

[31:13] HARRIET WEBER: Get the pattern for that? Was it a pattern you bought or.

[31:17] SALLY PATTON: Yeah.

[31:18] HARRIET WEBER: Okay.

[31:18] SALLY PATTON: Oh, now I get quilt in a day, and I can't think of the lady's name right now.

[31:25] HARRIET WEBER: That's all right. I hate it. So you like the underground railroad quilt, and what else have you produced that you're really proud of or really like?

[31:39] SALLY PATTON: I don't think any of the others. I like them all. I can't think of any that have any special.

[31:47] HARRIET WEBER: Have you made them to give to your grandchildren at all?

[31:50] SALLY PATTON: Yes. Yeah.

[31:51] HARRIET WEBER: Is that a family tradition now?

[31:54] SALLY PATTON: Well, kind of for me. And now I'm getting great grandchildren.

[31:59] HARRIET WEBER: So when do you make a quilt?

[32:00] SALLY PATTON: I happen to have aches and pains now, so I don't know how much longer this is going to go on.

[32:06] HARRIET WEBER: Is there a particular age that you give them a quilt?

[32:10] SALLY PATTON: No, when they're born, lots of times.

[32:12] HARRIET WEBER: All right.

[32:14] SALLY PATTON: My grandson Cody was doing a lot of downhill skiing, and so I made him a quilt that was downhill skiers on it. And I've given quilts to some of the kids when they've graduated from high school, like Camille Grigg Jones. I gave her one and a couple of the other nephews.

[32:38] HARRIET WEBER: Wonderful. Wow.

[32:41] SALLY PATTON: So how often I made some underground. No, no, no. Quilts of valor.

[32:48] HARRIET WEBER: Oh, tell about that.

[32:50] SALLY PATTON: I've made just two of those, but one was Deborah and Randy Zolman's son in law. I gave him one. And then my sister in law has a son who is in army special forces, and he will be retiring soon. And I made a quilt of valor for him, too. And then I wrote a letter that went with that one. That one was really special.

[33:24] HARRIET WEBER: Explain what a quilt of valor is.

[33:29] SALLY PATTON: It is in recognition of their service to our country and just kind of a memento, something that lets them know that they're appreciated.

[33:43] HARRIET WEBER: And do they have particular patterns or are they.

[33:48] SALLY PATTON: No.

[33:48] HARRIET WEBER: Red, white and blue? Are they often.

[33:50] SALLY PATTON: They're red, white and blue. Uh huh. But they're no, there's no special pattern size wise. They try to keep them to like a lap quilt, so. But they don't have to be. You can make them any size you want.

[34:08] HARRIET WEBER: So how did you determine what pattern to make these two?

[34:15] SALLY PATTON: Well, with the first one, I just found a pattern that I liked and made it. In the second one, it was basically the same thing. I'm trying to think what it's called. Bargello. It was partly bargello and partly just pieced and all the red, white and blue colors.

[34:40] HARRIET WEBER: So does it have any, like, patriotic symbols on it, or is it okay? So you could explain.

[34:47] SALLY PATTON: Sometimes they do. The second one did, and it had actually, it was more from the revolutionary war, but nonetheless, I just found what I could, and I found that on the Oregon coast, and it had. What was Hamilton's first name?

[35:05] HARRIET WEBER: Alexander Hamilton.

[35:07] SALLY PATTON: Yeah, that's on. He's on there.

[35:12] HARRIET WEBER: Well, so how did it make you feel to be able to produce a quilt of valor? Because I think that's like a national program, isn't it?

[35:19] SALLY PATTON: Well, it used to be, I guess, if you want to join a group. Yes, but.

[35:28] HARRIET WEBER: So what made you do that? What made you decide to gift those in that way?

[35:36] SALLY PATTON: I don't know.

[35:37] HARRIET WEBER: That's all right.

[35:39] SALLY PATTON: I did. I do that. I just appreciated what the boys had done, and I really did think that they would like those. And I enjoy, you know, gifting things for special occasions. And so that's what I did.

[35:55] HARRIET WEBER: That's wonderful. So how many hours a week do you spend out in your quilting studio?

[36:01] SALLY PATTON: That varies so much, I don't even know what to tell you.

[36:06] HARRIET WEBER: Are you out there every week?

[36:08] SALLY PATTON: Yeah.

[36:09] HARRIET WEBER: In some capacity?

[36:12] SALLY PATTON: Well, during COVID I wasn't out there hardly at all. I don't know why. Maybe I just needed a break. But I'm starting to get out there again now, and I'm making some small things right now. But I've done one baby quilt. I've got a new great granddaughter, and we have another one on the way. And I've got the pattern and the fabric purchased, but I haven't made it yet. And I've been doing some really. I think the pattern is really pretty, and they call them potholders, but they're too pretty to be potholders. And I'm making right now, I'm also making a tote bag, and that's the first one of those I've made, and it's really colorful and it's fun.

[37:02] HARRIET WEBER: So as I think about, you know, the whole story of this man who carried this quilt, this relative who carried this quilt and got it back home all those years ago, and then the quilts that you've produced for people, why do you think quilts become important to people? What is it about a quilt that makes people want to hold on to them?

[37:28] SALLY PATTON: I wondered that myself. Maybe it's just the fact that somebody has spent their time and effort to do something like that, and I think they're much nicer than just going into target and buying a quilt, you know? And there's kind of a tradition that you never throw a quilt away. Don't ever throw a quilt away.

[37:57] HARRIET WEBER: Well, is there anything else that we haven't talked about in terms of your life or your life as a quilter or this particular quilt that you want to make sure that we get on the recording?

[38:12] SALLY PATTON: I can't think of any. It tells what James Bull, you know, what he looked like and the different places that he was. He stayed in the civil war. But no, I don't think there is.

[38:32] HARRIET WEBER: Let's see, there's a whole lot, probably about his whole life and his service during the civil war that could be shared if we could show or if this was a visual presentation. But when it's just audio, it's a little bit different to translate all of that. But I just really thank you for sharing this story of this quilt and even for bringing it in today so that I could see it again and for your caring for it, because it is an important quilt. It's part of our country's heritage. And I just. I admire you for taking care of it and making sure that it didn't get ended up in the garbage somewhere.

[39:12] SALLY PATTON: Oh, wouldn't that have been terrible?

[39:14] HARRIET WEBER: Yes. So thank you so much for sharing with us today.