0:00:00.6 Margaret Traxler: Okay. That I should have pushed them both down at once. Okay. This is Margaret Traxler and I'm interviewing Genevieve Moffitt today, this is January 6th, 1994. So now, Gen, would you tell us a little bit about yourself? And I know that these are not your quilts. I mean, they're not the ones that you have made, but they're ones that you own. So we're gonna learn a little bit about you and about the quilts.
0:00:32.4 Genevieve Moffitt: Well, one quilt belongs to my sister Vivian and she received it in 1936 from our great aunt Ollie Finney from Iowa, she lived near Winterset, Iowa. And the other quilt, I received after I graduated from high school in 1937 and our aunt Ollie was an interesting person. They lived... After they retired, they lived in Winterset in a huge house that was on a half block of land, but when they first came from Indiana, it was in 1886 and they came from LaPorte County and came by train to begin a pioneer life of carving a home on the land, that was brush and prairie. They arrived in Iowa with 50 cents, Uncle Hess worked for neighbors and was paid in milk, eggs, and meat. They ate fish from the nearby river, berries and wildlife, and he started digging wells and building barns. After acquiring a team of horses and a wagon, he started hauling lumber from Winterset and erected buildings on land that they had acquired through a grant from a relative.
0:02:00.0 GM: They raised four children. And when they retired, they moved to Winterset and lived in this big house that I mentioned, and enjoyed their large garden and numerous fruit trees on the half block with their big house. Olive's pleasures were keeping a tidy house and making quilts, each of her seven grandchildren being the recipient of one of her exquisitely stitched quilts, and I'm sure that each of her children received some too, and I'm sure that her daughters also learned how to quilt. And their large retirement home was the scene of many family get-togethers and nothing was ever wasted, even after moving to town, she churned and sold butter from cream that was brought in from the farm and sold eggs from their small flock of hens. If anyone was sick or in need, she was always there to help, she was a gentle, quiet woman, a real lady and a great grandmother. And one thing I remember about her when we saw her in 1936, which was shortly after their 50th wedding anniversary, was her beautiful, big brown eyes, and the many, many quilts that she had on all the beds in the house. And I know that she had made quilts for so many people.
0:03:26.2 MT: About how many years do you think she quilted?
0:03:31.4 GM: I suspect that she probably didn't put as much time into the quilts that she made when she was really busy on the farm with the young family. But I'm sure that she quilted probably from the time she was married or maybe before, and she probably made more quilts and made more exquisite quilts after retirement.
0:03:58.4 MT: At what age do you think she started quilting?
0:04:02.3 GM: I would guess it was when she was pretty young, probably in her teens, maybe.
0:04:09.2 MT: And what were some of the patterns? Do you remember the pattern, names of some of the quilts that she made?
0:04:14.9 GM: Well, let's see. One of the ones that we have is... Oh, let's see. Is, let's see. Ocean Waves, I think it's called.
0:04:30.5 MT: Yes. That's one. I remember that from the show.
0:04:32.9 GM: Yeah. And I think the other one, they decided at the show that it was a nine patch, but it's done on a diagonal pattern, it's not just square. It's done kind of diagonally, but I think they decided it was a nine patch. That was... It probably didn't fit anything [laughter] else that they were familiar with.
0:05:08.4 MT: But you don't remember any of the other patterns that she gave like to her grandchildren?
0:05:13.1 GM: Oh, no. I remember that she had a Flower Garden quilt that she had on one of the beds, which was beautiful, done with very small patches and she did sew the blocks together by machine, but her quilting was very, very close together. The stitches were very small and it was beautifully done.
0:05:38.7 MT: Did you ever count her stitches per inch to see how...
0:05:42.2 GM: No, I haven't counted her stitches.
0:05:44.0 MT: They might have done that at the documentation too.
0:05:46.7 GM: I think probably they did.
0:05:52.5 MT: Did she ever tell you stories about her quilting or how, where she got her fabrics?
0:06:00.5 GM: No, I'm sure many of the fabrics were probably from dresses and aprons and things like that, that she sold for herself and for others. But she may have bought some materials, probably especially the backing and she used lightweight cotton filling in them.
0:06:20.8 MT: Oh, that's interesting. Did she buy that or did...
0:06:25.1 GM: I'm sure that she bought it. Yeah, it was kind of a very thin cotton batting type of material.
0:06:33.7 MT: And did you tell us... Did anybody else in her family quilt with her or do you think...
0:06:42.2 GM: Well, I'm sure that her daughters did.
0:06:51.0 MT: Did they ever use their quilts for anything other than just putting on their beds?
0:06:57.0 GM: Well probably not sometimes, maybe they were used for a spread, especially in rooms where the beds were used often they, it might have been a little difficult to keep some of the light colored ones clean, so they may have used them just for... Just as a spread, but I don't think they ever hung them on the walls or did anything like that with them.
0:07:28.4 MT: What were the main nationalities of the people in your family?
0:07:34.7 GM: I suppose Finney was probably an Irish name it sounds like it, our family background is a very mixed one. It goes back to revolutionary times and farther back than that, I suppose there is... I know there is some Scotch-Irish, and I know that there is... I think likely some Holland Dutch, and I think possibly, although my mother wouldn't have admitted it, but I think over there is some English.
0:08:11.0 MT: Do you remember what Ollie's nationality herself, the quilter or the quilts?
0:08:17.1 GM: Well she would be probably some Scotch, let's see, and probably somehow Dutch. I'm not sure what all they might have been because I'm sure by that time it was quite a mixed nationality.
0:08:43.6 MT: Yes. Okay. Did you ever see any of her quilts in the process of being made? Like could you tell me what kind of frame she used and what room she set it up in and stuff?
0:08:58.5 GM: I think she just had a big square quilting frame that was made of probably 2 x 4s or 2 x 6s probably 2 x 4s or maybe even 2 x 2. No, I think it was 2 x 4s and that was set up at... I'm sure when she was in the big house, she had room to keep it set up all the time.
0:09:30.4 MT: I didn't notice your clock. [chuckle]
0:09:32.5 MT: That didn't take very long. [chuckle]
0:09:38.6 MT: What time of day do you think she quilted?
0:09:43.9 GM: Well, I would guess probably before they retired, she probably didn't have much time to quilt during the day was probably more evenings, but after she retired, probably a lot of it was done during the day because the light would've been better.
0:10:01.1 MT: That's true. Did she ever sign any of her quilts?
0:10:06.8 GM: No.
0:10:07.9 MT: Or date them?
0:10:10.2 GM: No. [chuckle]
0:10:10.3 MT: She didn't. Oh, that's too bad.
0:10:11.7 GM: We know we got ours in 1936 and '37, and I think possibly she...I think she died in probably around 1950 or '51 and she probably wasn't able to quilt for a few years before she died. So probably most of her quilts were probably done in the '30s.
0:10:37.3 MT: Oh, that's interesting. Did she ever tell you how to care for the quilts that she gave you?
GM: No, She didn't.
0:10:45.6 MT: Did she quilt with a group of ladies too or did she just do mostly on her own?
0:10:55.1 GM: As far as I know, she did it mostly at home and there may have been some neighbor ladies that came over and worked with her, but I think pretty much she did it herself.
0:11:07.9 MT: Her stitching looks like it was done by one person cause it's all so perfect. Did she ever do any embroidered quilts?
0:11:19.5 GM: I don't think so.
0:11:22.4 MT: She liked piecing.
0:11:23.7 GM: Hm-hmm.
0:11:30.3 MT: And do you know where she got her patterns from?
0:11:35.8 GM: No, I have no idea. Probably from neighbors. [laughter]
0:11:39.1 MT: You never saw any of her books or...
0:11:42.2 GM: No, I don't know that she had any books I would guess she probably, maybe some... There may have been ladies that passed them back and forth among families but I don't think there were a lot of books on quilting in those days.
0:12:00.2 MT: Did she have a color preference for her quilts? Do you notice that many of her quilts used the same colors or did she...
0:12:07.7 GM: She liked a variety of colors, but not dark colors. Most of them were either medium, well, like mine is mostly blues, Vivian's has some rose and some other colors in it, but they're all fairly light colors, medium to light.
0:12:30.7 MT: Did she ever have any unusual color combination in any?
0:12:34.4 GM: I don't remember any.
0:12:37.1 MT: Did you see the quilts that were given to the grandchildren?
0:12:40.7 GM: No. I saw the ones that were on the beds. Well, I may have seen them when I was in their homes but I don't remember.
0:12:48.4 MT: You just didn't take notes because you didn't know you were going to be interviewed, right? [laughter]
0:12:52.4 GM: That's right, yeah. But I knew I was very much, I was 16 at the time and I was very much impressed. I'd never really seen quilts that probably... I don't know if I'd ever seen quilted quilts before and I was very much impressed with the beauty of them.
0:13:08.4 MT: Yes. I could tell a similar story and that's how I got interested in quilting was because a neighbor lady of mine was a very good quilter and it impressed me so much that I decided then that when I grew up, I was gonna learn to quilt. Well, I'm kinda looking over these questions here now. Not being the quilter yourself, it's...
0:13:48.0 GM: I haven't done very much actual quilting. I have made one quilt that was quilted, but it, I wouldn't say that it was extremely well done, but it was just kind of a learning process, I think.
0:14:04.2 MT: What was the name of that pattern?
0:14:11.1 GM: Let's see. Well in the, oh, around 1976, the bicentennial year, there were some quilt patterns that came out and I think the one that I, that were given state names and this one was called Maine, but it has kind of a pinwheel pattern on it.
0:14:31.6 MT: And that's what encouraged you to do a quilt? Is that right?
0:14:37.3 GM: Well I guess, and the fact that I've always liked quilts and I had some scraps, I suppose that was one reason too.
0:14:46.5 MT: Did it have a patriotic theme then too? Or did you...
0:14:49.5 GM: Well, no, I don't think so. It was just a book that had, they had a pattern for each state and I'm sure those patterns all had different names too. But this one was called Maine because I don't know why they picked that one from Maine, but.
0:15:08.7 MT: So it wasn't an actual drawing of the state of Maine. It was a pattern just to represent...
0:15:13.8 GM: They just picked different patterns to represent each state, I guess.
0:15:23.6 MT: And did your mother quilt then too?
0:15:28.0 GM: My mother made a lot of tied quilts from fabric scraps and things left over from our clothing and hers that she sold, but she never quilted. She never did quilting on them.
0:15:45.0 MT: Now was Ollie her sister?
0:15:47.3 GM: No, Ollie was my dad's aunt.
0:15:50.7 MT: Oh, your Father's aunt.
0:15:53.6 GM: And um, he grew up in Indiana. My dad grew up in Indiana and he went to Iowa and worked on the farm where his aunt Ollie Finney lived and he worked for them for, I'm not sure. Two or three years, but that's where he met my mother.
0:16:14.0 MT: Okay.
0:16:15.6 GM: Okay. She was a school teacher and she roomed at their place for a while.
0:16:20.2 MT: I see. And she never caught the quilting bug.
0:16:25.9 GM: I guess not. [laughter]
0:16:27.0 MT: Well, she was too busy teaching, I suppose. ------------Okay. That's ongoing. Okay. And now we'll just continue with our little interview. We took a little break here and I saw a beautiful friendship handkerchief quilt down your bed in your bedroom. Will you tell us about that one?
0:16:47.0 GM: Well, one day I was looking through cleaning out my drawers, I guess you could say, in the chest and realized that I had about 26 handkerchiefs that were in good shape, but I wouldn't use them anymore. So I decided to try to make a handkerchief quilt. And and when I started laying them out, I discovered that I, that 26 wasn't enough. And when my sister found some in her cedar chest that had been my mother's and so some of them were added and then at least two or three of our neighbors contributed one or two or more. And and then my sister who lives at Detroit Lakes contributed a few and and a nephew's wife at Belle Plain contributed a couple and her daughter gave me a whole bunch of little ones that just fitted in around the edge. And so it's kind of a friendship quilt, I guess, because so many people contributed to it and I decided to use all white background and then put a blue blue binding around the edge and I didn't actually quilt it. I tied it and I tied it with a pale blue And...
0:18:10.4 MT: But the stitching, the binding around the edge. And then the way you stitched them down around the edge is looks almost like hand quilting. It's beautiful.
0:18:22.1 GM: Well, yes, I suppose it does.
0:18:24.9 MT: And now you said something before about using flour and sugar sacks. That's your mother.
0:18:33.2 GM: I know that when my mother pieced quilts, but she wasn't an expert quilter, but she pieced them for use and her quilts were tied quilts and, and she was always saving pieces for a quilt that she intended to make someday, which she probably... Well, she did have a couple of... I've forgotten what the pattern is, but it's a star.
0:19:01.1 MT: Lone Star.
0:19:03.2 GM: Yeah. I think it's a Lone Star quilt anyway. It's one that's made of diamond shapes.
0:19:10.9 MT: Yeah.
0:19:11.3 GM: And she did have a couple of those pieced. One was all in yellows, I think. And, one was... And one was a variety of colors and she did have them partially pieced and but her quilts were tied quilts because she didn't have a frame and she didn't have the time, I guess to do to hand quilting.
0:19:39.2 MT: To hand quilt. Okay.
0:19:40.2 GM: But a lot of the pieces she used were from... Because a lot of the sewing that she did was back in the depression years was from feed sacks and flour sacks. And so that's what a lot of the pieces were.
0:20:02.8 MT: That's very interesting. Well now I think we can just wrap this up. Can you think of anything else that you would like to say at this time about quilts or about your family, or...
0:20:23.1 GM: I don't know. I know I appreciate quilting, although I don't consider myself an expert by any means.
0:20:31.3 MT: Okay. Well, thank you, Gen. And I think that's going do it for us. Okay.
0:20:55.1 MT: Okay. Now Gen is gonna tell us a little bit about herself, about where you went to school and what you've done with your life.
0:21:06.2 GM: Well, I was born near Leonard, North Dakota, and not in a hospital either. [chuckle] All of my sisters were born at home and I have three of them. And I went to a rural, rural schools for most of my grade school around Kindred, North Dakota. And then we moved to Argusville, North Dakota, just North of Fargo. And there we went to a small high school and...
0:21:56.5 MT: Okay.
0:22:00.0 GM: And I went to college at North Dakota state in Fargo. And I recently went back for the 50th anniversary of my class, which was, well, I graduated in 1942 and I worked for... Well, I taught school for a couple of years and then decided that wasn't for me. And then I went into extension work first at Detroit Lakes for about three years and then moved to Le Sueur County where I worked in extension work for almost 28 years. And then retired and I graduated in Home Economics of course, which is how I got into extension work. And I retired in 1977, I believe it was.
0:22:57.6 MT: And then you've been, you've still been very active in extension work.
0:23:02.4 GM: Well, yes, I've been somewhat active in extension work and in other volunteer things, especially church.
0:23:13.1 MT: And you live near LeCenter?
0:23:15.7 GM: Yes. On the shore of Lake Volney. [chuckle]
0:23:18.6 MT: Yes. The lake is beautiful as we sit here, we can see the lake all frozen and full of snow.
0:23:24.2 GM: We are kind of under coating of snow, but the fresh snow is pretty.
0:23:29.7 MT: Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you, Gen. -------