Juanita Shockey Harris

Brooke Bryan: My name is Brooke Bryan, it is December 7th, 2011, and I am in the home of Juanita, here to talk about her life and work as a quilt maker. Juanita, can you tell me your full name?

Juanita Harris: I am Juanita Harris or Juanita Shockey Harris. My maiden name was Shockey. I lived and I was born in Ravenswood West Virginia out in the country and I lived in West Virginia all my life until I was married, except two years we moved to Ohio and lived in Ohio. And that was my seventh and eighth grade. I went to a country school. And my birthday, it's the 9th, the 20th in 00:01:001922 is when I was born.

Brooke Bryan: What are some of your earliest memories that you can think of, do you remember what your home was like as a child? Do you remember what the landscape was like around your home, one of the homes you lived in?

Juanita Harris: Well my father worked for people. Or else worked on a farm. And he had horses. He done all his work with horses, we had our own chickens and cows and pigs. We bought very few groceries. And Daddy would go to town. And he always brought us a little sack of candy, probably a dime's worth of candy. But that was a nice size sack then! We lived in, just different, in different places 00:02:00we lived. I remember two places we lived. And... He done farm work. I was born in the afternoon. He'd just come from out in the field and was putting the horses away. My mother went out of the clothes line to call him that she was in labor. That the baby the baby was a 'coming and it was me and it was, I was born in the afternoon.

Brooke Bryan: You had siblings?

Juanita Harris: I had one sister. And so. I don't know, I think my aunt, her sister come, when I was being born because I was born in the country. Daddy went and got the doctor or went the doctor come, when I was born. I remember that 00:03:00house and I don't remember but... my sister was a little bit jealous of me because mom put me in the baby crib, in the baby bed that we had. And went—- I think she hung clothes up stairs in the wintertime to dry. And she heard me crying, and she come down to see what the problem was. My sister had bit my finger because she didn't, she was a little jealous of—- the baby got too much attention. And my mother's talked about that a lot.

Brooke Bryan: Did you have any farm chores as a child?

Juanita Harris: We had to go shut the chickens up after we moved to another place where we raised, we had lots of chickens. And sold eggs. And we had—- It 00:04:00was our job to go down and shut the chickens up of evening and I was a little bit afraid because it was beginning to get dark. We washed dishes after I got a little bigger. The two of...the two...us two girls washed dishes, well before that we had another baby brother. And we had a baby brother and when we lived in this house where the chickens was, we had two brothers. One baby was born. The last one. So I had a sister and two brothers. It was a nice size family. My mother and my Daddy.

Brooke Bryan: And was your grandmother around a lot in your childhood?

Juanita Harris: My grandmother was there but they were old—- they didn't come to our house as much as we did to their house. We had a horse and buggy. So we 00:05:00went in the horse and buggy to grandma's, about every Sunday. And I don't know why we went so much. She had. And we always had dinner there. And we went to church. They went to church. You know we always went to church. All our lives. We went to Daddy's side of the family. But not quite as much as we did Mother's side of the family.

Brooke Bryan: And your mother's mother, your grandmother, was a quilt maker?

Juanita Harris: Yes she pieced quilts, she quilted. I don't know when she started so much quilting. But they used to knot quilts. And I don't remember her until she, my grandpa died and she lived with us for several years. And she, that was her job. She quilted, she pieced quilts and that gave her something to 00:06:00do. And she always washed the dishes. That was her job. After a meal she—- she that she wanted to do something so she washed the dishes and well, we would dry the dishes. You know. And it was good having her there. And she would tell us stories about things that happened when she was young. We always liked their stories— and my grandpa would sit and tell stories. And we would sit down in front of him and let him tell us stories. And it was just an interesting life. We didn't have radio, we didn't have television. We didn't have games to play, except maybe checkers or domino or something like that.

Brooke Bryan: And so the feed sack quilt that you have, your grandmother pieced that?

Juanita Harris: She pieced that, the feed sack quilt, it is mostly all feed sacks. But we didn't have money to buy pieces. Daddy didn't make very much money back then, so we just used what we had and... she had to save every little scrap she had and use it. That's the reason the pieces are so small. We had made other things out of the rest of the quilt. And after the rest of the, out of the rest of the sack.

Brooke Bryan: So how would the feed sacks come, what were they like?

Juanita Harris: Well we got them after we lived where we fed a lot of chickens. And they were mainly chicken feed sacks. That we bought chicken feed in. And we 00:08:00would wash them and then pick out, well we made dresses out of them too.

Brooke Bryan: How big were they?

Juanita Harris: They were hundred pound sacks. What would hold a hundred pound of feed. So they was pretty good sized sacks. You know and it would take...It would take two to three to make a dress. Just depends on how fully you made it you know. If it was just kind of a little plain dress, two would do it.

Brooke Bryan: So your grandmother quilted. And she probably sewed clothes as well.

Juanita Harris: She she didn't sew as much back then when she lived with us. But she always sewed. And my mother made her clothes. She always made her clothes.

Brooke Bryan: And your mother made your clothes too probably?

Juanita Harris: Sure. She made she made our clothes out of sacks or material. She'd order—- before school started in the fall, she'd usually order material and make us two or three new dresses to wear to school.

Brooke Bryan: Were there patterns that she used? How did she know how to fit you?

Juanita Harris: I think she cut part of her—- just made her patterns. Some of them. But later on she bought patterns. And she made a lot of her clothes.

Brooke Bryan: And some of those clothes, some of your grandmother's and mother's dresses are in the quilts that you have.

Juanita Harris: So it's nice to look back at the quilts and see the dresses and things that we had made out of the material.

Brooke Bryan: So when you, when you were young quilting was kind of a community—-

Juanita Harris: It was community, yes. My mother, well I was still I was in 00:10:00school but my mother joined a Ladies' Aid that was a church organization. And so they would have their monthly meeting. And they usually had a quilt in the summer time to work on. Well they always did our house I suppose they did a lot of the other houses. You know they meet. Would meet different houses. And they would have dinner. It was usually a not all day meeting they would come ten or so and have dinner and then they'd quilt in the afternoon. And I don't know what they done with the quilts whether they sold the quilts or whether they was for someone that was having the meeting it was their quilt. I don't know. I wasn't I 00:11:00wasn't there all the time just once in a while when they met at our house. They would put those quilts on frames. Just—- well like my frame now as warm up. That's where my pattern or my frame pattern come from. I asked my mother could I have her frame that Grandpa Shockey had made for her. She didn't have a frame or she borrowed grandmothers or something. She needed a frame and he said but he Grandpa Shockey made her a frame and gave it to her and she used it. And then, it was nicer than the first one I still have my her frame up in the garage. Anyway, my pattern comes—- she gave me her frame and it wasn't as big, as long. I wouldn't quilt this big a quilt back then. As my little quilt, I don't 00:12:00know. They only had single beds and to you know just a regular bad not a, not a queen size bed or a king bed or nothing like that so they didn't need bigger quilts. So the ones that they made were smaller then mine. Mom’s had been sitting there, well, after when I brought her frame from down there. He said one morning it was after I'd retired, "Do you want to go in the garage and work on making you some quilting frames?" and I said, "Well yes." So we worked all day on my frames and Leah took the pattern from their pattern and only made it a little different, a little bigger. And so I'm awful proud of my frames. Mitch, 00:13:00sawed he had sawed out and sand, and then we had sand it that work where we was in the garage all day. It was a nice day to be working on something like that.

Brooke Bryan: So when the frames were, when there was a quilt on a frame when you were around the women, multiple women would work on the frame together and talk or?

Juanita Harris: Yes, they worked on the on the frames and talked and and I remember quilting on my mother's quilts. I always like to quilt, always wanted to sew.

Brooke Bryan: What's your earliest memory of sewing?

Juanita Harris: Sitting on my daddy's lap making a doll dress. I sewed all the way around, it didn't have any hole to put its arms through her snap through or 00:14:00feet for her. He helped me cut it out, my mother was a sewing, she was probably making a dress or something, and I want to sew. My sister was a sewer and she had needle and a thread and was sewing. Mom was sewing on the sewing machine. And I wanted to sew I was, I wasn't very big so he helped me cut the doll dress out for one of my dolls. And he told me to put my needle down then go underneath and push it back up and then go back down and push it back up and instead of sewing across the shoulders and down the sides, each side, I'd have a doll dress and I sewed all the way around it. So I had had to do it all for him. But I remember sitting there and he would tell me how to do it. It was, and it was at 00:15:00night sitting around a stove in the living room. I don't know, I think that's the first doll dress I ever made but we always had lots of doll babies to play with. Always wanted a doll every Christmas. And I usually got, well that's about all I got for Christmas was a doll and maybe some fruits and some nuts. And we never got lots of toys like the kids get today. Usually get one special thing and sometimes we got clothes.

Brooke Bryan: So as a child you and your sister, you both made outfits for those babies?

Juanita Harris: Oh we put in our time sewing doll clothes. We have in the 00:16:00summertime we'd make, make us a doll would make us a play house in the corn crib or in the wagon or in the shed or something. We'd make us play house and we always had scraps so we could sew for our doll babies. It was, we'd clean out the rooter house and scrub it and make it all nice and clean and then would build us a, we would make us a doll house in there then when they got the baby chicks in the fall they'd take our, we'd have to move out. And we even had our brothers sewing a little. They liked to sew too because they were younger they had to do what we wanted to do. And it, it was just, we had a good life. A happy life. At home. Very happy.

Brooke Bryan: You spent some time with your grandmother growing up in the summers?

Juanita Harris: I would go to my grandmother's and stay maybe a week, maybe a two or three weeks. I enjoyed going over to her house. She was, she was special. And I guess she thought maybe we were special or she would want to cap us, wouldn't want us to stay and maybe we'd get a piece of material she'd help me make a dress. That was after I was bigger and did know a little bit about sewing. She didn't keep us when we was little, we were big enough to help her in the house to wash dishes. And maybe sweep and do things like that for her. But we played a lot to while we was there too.

Brooke Bryan: How did you come across your first thimble?

Juanita Harris: I didn't. She she got material for my dress I think she paid a penny a yard for it. We walked to Morgan's one day. And she said I couldn't sew without a thimble, I had to learn to use a thimble so went to Morgan's we got it to come back. While we was there she got me material for a dress and she said well you need thimble. So she bought me a thimble and I was so really proud of it and got home and. She showed me how to put it on. I had to push. Showed me to push my needle through the material with my thimble and I wouldn't gauge my fingers. So I sewed with a thimble ever since. I hate to sew, you don't even 00:19:00like to sew a button on without a thimble. I still have it but it's got about three or four holes in the end where I've sewed to much with it. It has holes in the end of it, I've worn out several thimbles.

Brooke Bryan: So in school you also had home economics.

Juanita Harris: In my seventh grade. Well we moved to Ohio when I was in the seventh grade. That was in nineteenth and thirty six. When we moved to Ohio Daddy was working for some man on a farm and so I went to the seventh grade and the eighth grade in a little country school in Ohio. And this eighth... no this..it was the eighth grade I took home ec. I started at, up to the went down 00:20:00to the high school. Started at the high school. And we had projects each year. We had a cooking project we would cook so much. So many times meals and and we learned to can and we learned anything you do in a home. And then we sewed. Well we had to take projects in the summertime because it was you had to get a credit. And it took summer and winter to get your credit. Anyway, I decided to take sewing for my project. And I made a quilt.

Brooke Bryan: Tell me where the fabrics for that quilt came from.

Juanita Harris: I don't know. I didn't know where I got the material. I had, we bought it someplace but I don't remember where we got it. I don't remember 00:21:00buying the material. But I know we bought it and I decided to make a quilt and quilt it. So I paste the quilt and appliquéd on the material the background and quilted it...I can't...I can't remember. But then I said "Well I'll make a quilt." I'd make a pair of pillows which I made the pillows to- during the summer we picked the we had geese and I picked I picked the geese of course my grandmother and my mother helped me. And we, I made the down pillows. I got a 00:22:00pretty good grade on mine, and then I had to take it. I believe the home ec teacher come to our house and seen what I, my project she had to visit. The pair. The girls and and see their project of what they would work, had worked on. And I got a pretty good grade out of it.

Brooke Bryan: And the pattern of that quilt is a...?

Juanita Harris: It's a Dresden Plate. And it's just a circle, it's a pieced circle.

Brooke Bryan: When that quilt was finished, did you use it? Juanita Harris: Well I wore it out, we wore it out. It's getting pretty, it's pretty raggy you can't even throw it away. It still has a place. And that's good with them. I must've been six then when they're thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight. I must've been 00:23:00about thirty not thirty eight, nine. When I made the, when I made my first quit. Nineteen thirty eight thirty nine. So. Then I had to quit quilting too much. Went to school. I had, would quilt on my mother's quilts at home. My sister's quilt so she was making one I'd set it and put it with her's, on her's but I didn't make anymore quilts for a long time.

Brooke Bryan: What did you do when you graduated high school?

Juanita Harris: I got married. I graduated high school in forty two and got married. When I graduated in May, I think it was the twenty first, got married in July the night of nineteen and forty two. So I wasn't home long after I got 00:24:00married. I knew I was lived in the country I knew they didn't have money for me to go to school. So what could I do. And I'd met my husband when I was in the seventh grade. So I'd gone with him and we would move back and went back to West Virginia. When I was after my first year of high school. We moved back to West Virginia and I went to school and graduated. And we would write if every once in a while or they'd come, his family had come to our house in West Virginia time or two. And then we sort of got—- he went his way I went mine. And I finished 00:25:00school I sent him a graduation card when I graduated from high school. But we'd wrote, we'd written letters in between off and on. And when we first started going together, he would walk me to church when we went to church and in Ohio. And we lived right next to the church he'd come down and we would need to walk to church or else ride to church and with his mom and dad and their family.

Brooke Bryan: So he was from Ohio?

Juanita Harris: He was. He lived in Ohio yes but he was born in West Virginia, north of Ravenswood. And they move—- then they..they move to Ohio. They had built a new house. Now I read. I ran across this in my pictures. They ran across. I got... He got a birthday card. I don't know...since we've lived here, 00:26:00from his mother and she told him the story of his, of his birth. They live down in Ravenswood and they had built a house in North Ravenswood. They walked up the railroad tracks when she—- they had one child, Mayford. They walked up the railroad track to the new house they had moved and she was pregnant. And that night or evening he was born. And she said she was she was really...so I guess his dad went to get help and the doctor. And he was born that night. After they 00:27:00walked up the rail—- and then they sold that place and moved to Ohio when he wasn't very big. They had lived there long. He traded his dad traded his dad traded the house for a team of horses. And part of the farm...And then they had bought the farm. I don't know how they got the farm but they had the farm in Ohio. And that's where they moved.

Brooke Bryan: So when you made that first quilt you already knew your husband to be—-

Juanita Harris: No he. We didn't...no. I didn't know it was going to be my husband then.

Brooke Bryan: Of course.

Juanita Harris: Didn't know that until I graduated from high school it was about...long about early spring when he began writing to me.

Brooke Bryan: He had a picture of you from seventh or eighth grade right?

Juanita Harris: Yes.

Brooke Bryan: And didn't his family suffer a loss?

Juanita Harris: Yes they did they lost their home their—- where they moved to when he was a baby. And the house burned and...I think it was the flu were caught. And they got a few things out but not much out of the house and...he they...the boys. Well they had. They had seven was that all the kids were born there was seven and he had all..was it seven brothers? Six brothers and one sister. And so his Dad come out and they didn't have any place to go so they moved in the old school house where I went to school in the seventh grade. They 00:29:00wasn't having school there then so they let them move in and yet then that's where they lived until they built another house and...let's see, they had... The neighbors I guess come and help move when they seen the fire. Anyway, when his dad come out after they had-the fire was probably still burning but they couldn't get in and he handed my picture to Jim and said, "Here I saved this, it was on the mantle." And he had saved it. So I still have it. And then it was after it was a good while, few years after that I was in school. And the bus went across on one side of the river. And you can see their house on the other 00:30:00side of the river. So we've seen where the fire was when we went to school that morning. It was..it's... fire's are bad.

Brooke Bryan: Devastating probably, to lose your home.

Juanita Harris: It seems to me like it would be. I think it would be terrible.

Brooke Bryan: So then you moved back to West Virginia.

Juanita Harris: We was living in West Virginia when they had their fire.

Brooke Bryan: OK. But he was still in Ohio?

Juanita Harris: He lived in Ohio. They lived in Ohio. And we lived in West Virginia.

Brooke Bryan: How did you guys begin to correspond?

Juanita Harris: He wrote letters—- we wrote letters a few times after we've 00:31:00for...after we first moved to West—- back to West Virginia. We wrote letters for a while and then we quit writing letters. I guess he went his way I went mine we wasn't close together. We was close together but we wouldn't- didn't see each other until we was older. And he come up here to work or he moved someone—- he moved his cousin up here and the cousin didn't have money to send him back home, so he got a job. And he went to work when he was—- I think he was only seventeen or so...seventeen or probably when he moved the people up here. And he got a job at the cement plant over in Fairborn mowing grass: he 00:32:00wasn't old enough to work in the factory where they made the cement. They would let him work and mow grass so he took that job but then he—- the war was going on and they were to hiring at the field so he...he went to work at the Wright Patterson air force. They hired him before the war... But...well while the war was going on because they were hiring a lot of people. So he was working there and his dad worked in the cement plant and he said something about me about me and so his dad said, "Well why don't you write to her?" So he wrote to me and we started writing then and that was from... That was in forty one and... He come back down home and we dated a few times when he had a weekend the 00:33:00long weekend. We dated a few times but not long till we were married.

Brooke Bryan: How did you know that you would marry him?

Juanita Harris: I just always I always thought a lot of him...I always thought—- and I thought a lot about his family. They were a nice family. I don't know. I guess. I hadn't met anybody else. In fact I was dating somebody when I went, when I was writing letters to him but that didn't pan out.

Brooke Bryan: Did he ask you to marry him?

Juanita Harris: Yes he did.

Brooke Bryan: How did that go?

Juanita Harris: He didn't get on his knees. We had gone, we had gone to the show one night and on the way home... There's a big tree and we stopped at that big 00:34:00tree and talked and sat there and talked till finally he asked me to marry him. And I didn't agree right the first thing but I agreed soon after. You know.

Brooke Bryan: Did you talk it over with your family? How did that go?

Juanita Harris: They didn't know. They knew we were engaged. But he come on Saturday. And we was marrying—- he come on Friday evening. And he was at my house overnight. He was allowed to stay back then because he couldn't get back across the river the ferry quit running. So we got up the next morning and said we was going to go to Gallipolis. And we would...he was...we was taking Mayford and Wilma to Gallipolis and they went with this to get married. So we picked 00:35:00them up and went to Gallipolis and was married in Gallipolis. And then went back home. Scared to go home. But Mayford had told everybody before we got home and we didn't get to...we didn't get to tell. We didn't get to tell. Well my mother grandmother wasn't, they wasn't too happy but they wasn’t—- they didn't say anything to us.

Brooke Bryan: So from there did you stay, did you live at home for some time or how did you—-

Juanita Harris: No, we left on Sunday and come up here. We left on Sunday morning and come up here and I thought to myself on the way it was so hot. And we had a flat tire to...maybe maybe two flat tires cause you couldn't get tires then. You couldn't get lots of things cause a war was going on. And so we come 00:36:00up here and he where we lived in the house where he was eleven when we got home so that was our home. We come home. Now was he in the service. You know that was in July. He went to the service in nineteen in November. Nineteen and forty two. On our first Christmas I didn't know where he was cause a troop train had picked him up. He was stationed. He was stationed Wright Patt for a little while they said if he were working there he'd be stationed there where he was stationed there just a short few weeks. And when he left for service he left from down home from Pomeroy and I stayed at my mother's. I was at my mother's and then when he got station sent back to the field. He calls and they was—- so that he 00:37:00was back on the field. So I come up here. I come back up here. And they all sold papers in Fairborn. He was in the grades...he was in grade school I don't know maybe fourth or fifth grade and sold papers and he come to the house and said the troop train is loading and then says, "Jim's on the troops train." He's getting on the troop train. Well, we went to that...down from Fran Avenue down to the railroad to see the troops leaving and he was already on the plane—- on the train. That's when the—- they shipped their troops by train and his dad lifted me up and he opened the train door and he kissed me goodbye. And it was. 00:38:00It was Christmas. Just a few days just a few she would very few days before Christmas. And so I didn't know where he was he was they wasn't they didn't know where they were going. They didn't know where the train would end up. They didn't know at all where they would go.

Brooke Bryan: What was your life like as a sort of new bride with a husband in the service? What did you, what did you do?

Juanita Harris: Well, I was up there I got a job at Wright field.

Brooke Bryan: Wright Patt?

Juanita Harris: Yes, but I didn't work but about maybe two months. And he was stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi and he called it he was at Biloxi and I could, I could come. So I visited once or twice and then I went and went and stayed. So 00:39:00I lived in Biloxi for nearly two years. And we had we had Jim while we lived down there. And I was away from home. Having a new baby. And that was a pretty scary life part of the time but you know. I don't think I was as scared then as it would be if I was going away now to live or off on a troop train and never ridden on a train. I've never ridden on the bus. And then start off that distance, that was a ling trip. But I wanted to go and he wanted me to come so that's where I went.

Brooke Bryan: When you worked at Wright Patt, what was your position? What did you do?

Juanita Harris: I learned to solder lugs on wires. I think it was for lights 00:40:00that went on the airplanes. Where they they had people just solder wires as well that's what they put me to doing. And we had to...I know it wasn't a very good life but I didn't do it very long so then after went to Biloxi before I got pregnant, I worked in a restaurant. I made enough money in a week to pay my week's rent. So that's where my money went. I paid my rent and of course I could eat at the restaurant where I worked so we didn't have to buy food, very little bit of food and he was he could live off base. He didn't have to be on base, so that it was good to be with him. I wouldn't trade it for nothing. But I missed 00:41:00home. He missed home we both missed home. I'm satisfied but it was, if he had been service it was good to be with him.

Brooke Bryan: How did you know his service was coming to an end?

Juanita Harris: How did I know, well he never went overseas. He was lucky he had finished his, I had to come home when he was going to school because he wanted to know I was home. You know. And we had to save enough money for a ticket home from wherever we, wherever we lived so I could get home, and he finished his ball tour. Well in Louisiana, he went to Louisiana Well I was with him in Louisiana. And for good while. And he was going to ba—- he was going to 00:42:00gunnery school. And he finished his gunnery school and was waiting to be shipped out when the war was over and then they didn't take him which he was lucky.

Brooke Bryan: So you had one son?

Juanita Harris: I had one son and then I had a daughter in Louisiana, well I didn't have her and Louisiana. I come home to—- I I come home and was living in Fairborn when my second baby was born. And she was born over in Dayton. But he was home on leave while I was when I was expecting or he'd figured he'd leave so that they he could get off early and so he was home with me when she was 00:43:00born. She was born in Dayton and then he went back to service and the war was over then, so you know he could off early and be home. And then he had to go back. Then I think he went back to to Florida. And he worked there until I was he was discharged. He was discharged in March she was born in January and he was discharged in March. I believe. No, I was in ser—- he was in service while she was here still in service while she was a baby.

Brooke Bryan: So you lived in Ohio and had two youngsters. And he was in service in Florida. Was any of your family in Ohio? Who did you—-?

Juanita Harris: His dad lived. He lived with us. His. Yeah his dad lived with us 00:44:00more to over there. And he let—- his mother was there part of the time.

Brooke Bryan: And your family was still in West Virginia?

Juanita Harris: And so when he came back from Florida and he was discharged from service.

Brooke Bryan: How did life proceed from there?

Juanita Harris: Well, we built a bigger house in Fairborn in eighteen months I had another baby after he come from service. I had the best two girls then and my son and he was home but he worked all the time with us. I don't know he. He built houses he went back to work finally went back to he well he was going to draw some retirement but or it was wouldn't be retirement and I don't know what it was he was going to draw but they was hunting him a job and so they've got 00:45:00him a job on the on the railroad track and he didn't want to work on the railroad he would go back to the field to work. So he went back to the field and worked after he was discharged. He worked at the field and he built houses. We did hear he did many he worked all the time. So now. When Melva was born, she was born in a car on the way to the hospital so we didn't get to the hospital to get her. And pulled back in our driveway in a neighbor that lived right with us that are in that same house, in one side of the house, we lived in the other side. And she was there and well the baby had already been born and the doctor come to the house. And I got a—- walked out of the...he he he cut the cord and 00:46:00handed the baby to Verna and she says, "What am I supposed to do with her?" She didn't know and she had one child and she had a boy just a little older than mine, about same age of mine. And then she was expecting. And this her baby was born after mine. What am I supposed to do with her? But we got along fine. And we decided he decided to Bill. We he had a lot he had bought a lot on the corner of Fran and South Septer so we'd built a house and then would come over here. We've lived here ever since and that was in nineteen fifty one when we come here.

Brooke Bryan: So when you had this place, did you have some land and you had 00:47:00four kids at that time?

Juanita Harris: We bought two acres we had two acres here. I still have the two acres and the two houses what we did we bought that big house up there. When we lived in the first house on my two acres. We bought the, that big house went up for sale. And we bought it and lived there until the kids were all gone. After they left he had had a heart attack so he had had two heart attacks and I said we don't need the steps to run up and down to the bathroom and we don't need the house. So we decided to sell and built this house here and have lived here ever since.

Brooke Bryan: So during the time that your children were young there was definitely no time for quilting but you did make some of their clothes?

Juanita Harris: I made all the biggest end of their clothes when they was in grade school. I would. I would make get a piece of material or make maybe two or three dresses and they all three of the girls dressed dressed just alike made just alike off of the same pattern. I had the pattern so I could double look and I would come up with a little different from one dress for one of their dresses. You know. Not separate. They all had the same little decoration on them. And I puckered the hem up and had little ribbon up here and made a button hole and tags and ribbons that made a little...they remember their dresses. And after they got in high school then they had some boughten clothes but they still had they still had homemade clothes and they sewed would make some of their dresses.

Brooke Bryan: They sewed with you? Did they make any baby doll clothes?

Juanita Harris: Not as many as I made. They always had dolls but they just didn't seem to have time to sew doll...I can't remember making much doll clothes, but I made doll clothes for their dolls. Made doll clothes for my dolls. Made doll clothes for my grandkids' dolls.

Brooke Bryan: So you mentioned, I think this is by the time everyone had moved out and the kids had flown from the nest, your husband would take care of the dishes.

Juanita Harris: Well that was after the kids were gone and I I had... was 00:50:00working, I worked at school in the cafeteria. I cooked at school and worked at McKinley school. And then I'd come in from work and we worked I think about seven hours a day. And I would fix supper and then he would say well if I had a quilt and was working on a quilt and had one in a frame, "Well you can go quilt. I was. I will clean up the kitchen." He done a better job cleaning up the kitchen then I did, he done a good job and he would cook he would cook some. But and if he had company during the day he'd he'd fix a meal for them like his sister or someone who would come here. And the girls got so then they'd come every... I don't know they would come for the lunch. They was working in Xenia 00:51:00or Yellow Springs or some place the two of them would come for lunch and he'd fix lunch for them and he always he always cleaned up after he fixed lunch for them.

Brooke Bryan: Do you remember what inspired you to make your first quilt after the kids left it was an appliqué quilt, right? It was an appliqué quilt?

Juanita Harris: I don't remember what it was. I know which one it is but don't remember the name. I just always like to quilt today I piece, I pieced pieced...I had some quilts made some quilts while I was still work: two or three. And I just always like to do it. That's what I learned to do and I like to do it and, I'd take them to school and show them to the girls that I worked 00:52:00with. I know I've made, I know I've made two or three. I know. The rose, the garland of roses. I'm not sure but I think I had made that while I worked and I made the first one while I worked. Then I made the appliqué one.

Brooke Bryan: How did you find the quilt patterns?

Juanita Harris: I bought kits, I bought the kits from Herrschners catalogue. I had to order a kit. Then I'd sit down and make it. In fact I ordered all of them. All my appliqué ones are ordered. And all my cross stitched ones are order. But my piece the ones that are pieced, I've just get that pattern out of the out of a mag out but not a magazine out just one of my quilts books. Cut out the patterns would be there. I got books down there it's quilt books. I've got 00:53:00that box right sitting over there but that's full of quilt magazines I wouldn't throw away because there's quilt pattern in them. It just like I could take them books away I still get them out and look at them. And the once its a piece by piece. And a lot a bass part of my piece by hand. I have pieced one or two partly by on sewing machine. I'd rather sit I like sewing by hand rather then setting down piece and things on the sewing machine. I don't like that.

Brooke Bryan: So you went through a process of making a few appliqué a few pieced quilts and your mom was also quilting and she had—- she was doing some 00:54:00piece work. Was she still in West Virginia at this time?

Juanita Harris: Yes. She lived in West Virginia and my daddy had died she lived by she lived by herself. He died... I don't remember how many years. I can't. I've got it down in there. I don't remember what I think it was in the seventy's when he died seventy's something... She lived by herself and she had she done quilts then because she could see to sew and and that helped her pass her time and and... So she gave her quilts away. I'm too stingy to give mine away. I guess I will someday. But I haven't given any of mine away. Except my babies, my 00:55:00gra—- great grand baby's quilts. I made quilts for them. I made a quilt for each one of them.

Brooke Bryan: So in some of those quilts that you and your mother made, especially the ones that she pieced and you quilted...

Juanita Harris: Well she would give me—- she gave me a top. After she was married she had one partly, partly done. And I asked her I said Mom, "Could I have that quilt if I finish it?" and she said yes. I think it was a fan quilt if I remember. I think it was my fan quilt that... I don't think you've got a picture of it. I finished it and kept it for years before I ever quilted it, long time before I ever quilted it... in fact I think I had two that I two pieces tops that she had given me that I just folded up and put away and one of 00:56:00them was...one of might have been... I don't I don't know whether it was my snowball. Could have been the snowball that I pieced years after she had given me the top.

Brooke Bryan: She gave you a lone star quilt. When was that?

Juanita Harris: I think a white lone star quilt... Well... I think she gave that to me...it would have been after we, while we was living up at the house...the big house up there is the year she gave it to me and I don't think we moved. I don't know what year we lived there. I have to get out paper work or stuff to figure out when we lived there. It was in the sixty's sixty's. It would probably 00:57:00be around the sixty's when she gave it to me.

Brooke Bryan: And then she gave you another pie—- another…was it a double wedding ring or a dresden for Christmas? It's colorful?

Juanita Harris: She gave me, she gave me the star quilt. That was for Christmas one year. She gave me all the Dresden Plate...was that the one off the list?

Brooke Bryan: I think so, you had to do some fancy quilt work but that was a star—- that was actually flower quilt?

Juanita Harris: Yeah. Let me think a minute. Well that's the reason I made the 00:58:00quilts to have a piece of the dresses. If I had, if I'd kept all the pieces I made for the girls from when they was little I'd have lots more. But somehow or other, I don't know what happened to all my scraps. But some of them is pretty old, some of them, some of the pieces.

Brooke Bryan: Well, your your grandmother's quilt the feed-sack well the nine patch is made of feed sack and we talked about that those were from, you know, those were real feed sacks that were saved and used, but in some of the other quilts there's also a lot of dresses, some of your grandmothers and your mother's dresses and then later on in your own work there are your dresses. What do you think the significance of of using scraps and and reusing fabric from 00:59:00from clothing, what's the significance of that? Not, not all contemporary quilt makers do that these days.

Juanita Harris: I think it's nice to think back of the dresses that I had made out of the material. You could look at—- lay down on a quilt and lay there and look at the different dresses and think of the different people and who had a dress off of that piece of material. And maybe how the dress was made. Maybe the pattern they used. It just it's interesting that brings back memories of of people that's long gone and that means a lot to a person after they've been gone for years. That...

Brooke Bryan: Sure does.

Juanita Harris: Just brings back memories of what happened when you when you was little. Some of them when you were little.

Brooke Bryan: And seeing your own fabric in your own quilts probably bring back memories of certain—-

Juanita Harris: After you've looked back and you think of dresses you made for certain, certain girls or yourself for, you know... It just... Things that nobody can take away from you you remember it.

Brooke Bryan: So the first quilt that you made, the first kit that you ordered 01:01:00was an appliqué quilt called progress. Do you have any thoughts on making that quilt? Did that kind of open up a whole new world for you?

Juanita Harris: That opened up a whole new world and I thought, "Will I ever get it done and how will I do it?" And I got my kit and opened it up and went through it and I thought all the little pieces, all the little pieces was on different pieces of material. And you had to cut them out, out far enough so you would have a, you could turn the edges down around. And you had to decide which piece was to be put down first because you had to put each piece or it wouldn't be right. And so I had this I had to work. I had lot of studying to do when I 01:02:00first made the first one, the first appliqué because I've never appliquéd, I appliquéd some but I'd never appliquéd a quilt and one, maybe there'd be for or five pieces, one piece on top of the other pie—- the piece before. And I then I would go—- I would piece, cut them out and have enough to turn under a little bit. And I'd based around that. Then I based around. Then I would pin them or based them to my—- just depends on what kind of a piece, what shape piece it was rather I'd pinned on or whether I based it on before I appliquéd it. I was good while making it for my first one.

Brooke Bryan: When you do the appliqué, do you turn it under with your needle as you go?

Juanita Harris: No, well... If there's a little place that's not based then I 01:03:00usually do, take my needle and tuck it under.

Brooke Bryan: And how do you base it?

Juanita Harris: How do I base it? Well I just, I just make a bigger stitch then I would make if I was appliquéd it.

Brooke Bryan: So you would fold the edges under and based it down? Would you iron the bases down?

Juanita Harris: Not really, I could just fold them down down and kind of do it with—- press them with my fingers, press them down. And they'd usually stay enough that I could sew. But it was easier if I did based them. And I based, I based most of them. Brooke Bryan: So you've made a number of appliquéd quilts. There's a garland of roses. There's the tree of life. There is the—-

Juanita Harris: Magnolia Purple—-

Brooke Bryan: The magnolia but the purple one is all appliquéd, the purple one is called daisy...

Juanita Harris: Wild daisies I believe. That's not it. That's it.

Brooke Bryan: Wild daisy. Do any of those quilts stick out in your minds?

Juanita Harris: They all stick out in my mind. But the one you're working on is the prettiest. Every one you work on is the prettiest. Now I don't know why, and it’s—- the Tree of Life that was a, that was a hard one. Wild daisies was the pretty one. It was hard. Especially the center. And I usually start on the edge of the border around the bottom—- around the edge of it and kind of get a 01:05:00hang of it. And by the time you get to the harder part then it's easier. The tree of life—- there's a lot of embroidery—- There's a lot of embroidery on it, but now they now they sell the tree of life that’s—- I don't know if it's cross stitched or if it's a embroidery, I was looking through a magazine the other day or a book here the other evening, and it's cross—- either cross stitch or embroidery I don't know which it is. The tree of life. They don't have that one in the book anymore. So...

Brooke Bryan: The garland of roses or which is this? The garden of treasures also—- actually it is the garland of roses that has a lot of embroidery as 01:06:00well, on the flowers, very detailed.

Juanita Harris: There's a—- some of them has a lot of embroidery on them. Brooke Bryan: So what's your process? You first do the piece work? Juanita Harris: Oh you do, you do the piece work first. Then I usually, I don't remember how I did do that but I must have—- when I do run rows I'd probably embroider it at the same time.

Brooke Bryan: At the same time you appliqué?

Juanita Harris: After I get that rose done then I'd probably, I would get do my embroidery work on it and go to the leaves maybe I'd make three or four leaves and then I'd do the embroidery work on them. Before I left this corner piece I'd have all my embroidery work done on them, and even the little, even the little ones I usually, I would do them. If I because it was too easy to miss a spot 01:07:00that needed to be embroidered so I'd do one rose embroidery, two or three leaves and embroider them if they were right together. This up here, I don't I it's been a long time since I've made that one.

Brooke Bryan: So when you, I I mean over time you have created a pretty serious body of work I mean you you have made a lot of heirloom quality quilts. What do you think—- what does quilting mean to you? I mean how how would your life be different if you didn't have this craft?

Juanita Harris: I'd get pretty bored here by myself if I didn't, if I didn't 01:08:00have something to work on. And I enjoy sewing more than anything else and I read some. But I enjoy sewing, sewing passes the time for me. And when you're here by yourself you have to do something. You have to have some kind of a hobby to pass time. And when you make something you're proud of you like to show it to people. And I like to take and I like to take my quilts down to church and have them on the table up the front for a month or so.

Brooke Bryan: How did that begin?

Juanita Harris: They asked me at church. And they decided one of the ministers decided that it would be nice to put a quilt on the on the table up front. Brooke Bryan: And so who had—-

Juanita Harris: They asked, "Who has quilts?" I was like well I've got a quilt. 01:09:00So I took, I took—- I'll bring one, so I took one down and they all liked it. They took pictures of some of mine it was on the pole. But I run across some pictures in there and someone asked me in church a week or two ago if I didn't have a quilt I could bring. I said I'm working on one. So this one will probably go to church when I get it down. You like to show them to people. And it helps to pass your time. What would I do here all the time if I didn't have my sewing to do?

Brooke Bryan: Do you feel like some quilts still challenge your skills? Do you still learn more as you quilt?

Juanita Harris: Well yes you learn a little bit every year every every time you 01:10:00make one. And I had—- You—- I don't know this one has been the hardest. If my eyes hold out, I guess I'll quilt all my day long as my eyes hold out because I've had cataract surgery on both my eyes. And I don't see as good as I did. I don't like make as good as—- small stitched as I used to make.

Brooke Bryan: Well you sure thread a needle quick and your stitches look great to me. Beautiful work. So today in home economics they don't necessarily—-

Juanita Harris: They don't teach stuff like they did back then. The schools doesn't... They taken so much out of school and I think they need it because 01:11:00I've got—- I've got granddaughters or...less call them granddaughters in law, that don't sew a button on. My grandson brings his shirts up here every once in a while and wants a button sewn on them. And I've done many of that, you know maybe sewing buttons or sewing up a hole or something. I've even put a patch on for him. But they don't, they don't teach that anymore. They don't teach a lot of stuff that they should.

Brooke Bryan: What do you think is lost when, you know, entire generations don't learn either basics or hobbies...art?

Juanita Harris: There'll be a lot of things they've lost. They...They... But I 01:12:00don't know maybe they won't know they've lost it. Maybe they'll all be gone by then. Great grandkids growing up, I wonder will they be sewing? Will yours when they grow up?

Brooke Bryan: I hope so.

Juanita Harris: Well I hope you teach it too, cause if they don't then they're missing something.

Brooke Bryan: Sense of a job well done if nothing else.

Juanita Harris: Yeah. And I'm proud of every one of mine. Some day I hope my kids are.

Brooke Bryan: Pretty sure they already are. So other then the quilts that you have made for for grandkids to give away as gifts, you pretty much have 01:13:00all of the quilts that you've made me. Talk to me about that.

Juanita Harris: Well, I could give the kids a quilt, but I want them taken care of, and if I gave them to them and they had them on the bed and the dog happened to jump up on them that that would hurt my feelings to think of the hours I had put in working on that. And then the dog or cat jumping up on my bed, up on their bed. I couldn't stand that. So I decided I would wait until I was—- I wasn't around to see them, my quilts abused. I didn't want one of them abused, not one of them. Even a little old nine path or four patch. And I'd think of all 01:14:00the hours I put in piecing it and quilting it. I don't... I think they'd take better care of them and that. But it would hurt my feelings if they didn't. And I don't want to see them... And so I thought well I could give one of away, I could give—- I could give four of them away. They'd make nice Christmas presents, but I I don't know how I'd decide which one to part with or which one to give which they've told me, "Mother, you, you just sit down and decide which of them goes where." And I can't. I can't yet maybe someday I will be able to. But so far I haven't decided and it's just I don't know. I don't know how how 01:15:00they will decide. But there's...it'll be hard.

Brooke Bryan: So your quilts here. You rotate them on your bed sometimes—-

Juanita Harris: I have flower garlands on my on my two front beds now. We—- Howard—- Augie and me, or Michael and me decided to we'd put different quilts on. And here we all had them all bagged up and put away but the flower garlands. So we put the flower garlands on each bed. Each of the front beds, I didn't change mine, I changed the two front beds, I said, "Well it's kind of winter, they're dark, so put them on." So those are the ones we put on. We had the rest of them put away. And we wasn't long in getting them put away. But I said, "Well 01:16:00since they're out we'll just have them."

Brooke Bryan: Tell me how you, how do you keep them? How do you store them, your quilts?

Juanita Harris: I just fold them up and stick them up the spot where I've got them placed. I usually put them in pillow cases the—- mainly the white ones and the- Fold them, put them up in the closest, up in the top of the closest. And some of—- I've got a quilt rack in there and I hang two or three on it and leave them out when you can get in the bedroom, in the front bedroom.

Brooke Bryan: Do you think that seeing the ware on the quilt that you made while you were still in school sort of brought you to, to your thinking about your 01:17:00quilts? Most of them, they have not been washed at all, right?

Juanita Harris: I have washed one of mine, one that I've made. Now I've washed the ones that my mother get—- Well, I've washed one of them that mom gave me, but I don't usually use hers. I fold them up and put them away too. So I guess they'll be listed right in with mine. But I I think they will know which ones she made because they have been used—- the ones that she has given me mostly, except the star—- now I haven't used it on my beds. But some of them that she gave me a long time ago I have used them I have used them a lot. But I have—- when you have blankets you don't, you don't use your quilts and maybe put one quilt over the top of a blanket, and—- but some of them I've got. One in there 01:18:00on the bed right now. Well the one Grandma made is on my bed and it's been washed several times. But it, you know, it held up pretty good. And every stitch of it is by her hand. The—- I don't know how many more I'll make. And I don't I guess maybe that's the reason I was looking to catalog. The other night I went I get this one done I will have nothing to work on except my pieces sitting around and I try to piece that one, but I might piece that one on the sewing machine. Who knows, I might I might just cut some squares out and sew them 01:19:00together or piece them or maybe I'll knot, knot a quilt. I've never knotted a quilt, and that might be nice to knot a quilt.

Brooke Bryan: Switch it up a bit.

Juanita Harris: Yeah that might change it. But I don't know. I guess you could put it on the frame just to knot it, couldn't you?

Brooke Bryan: I think so. You have to base it out somehow, right?

Juanita Harris: Well if you just take great big stitches, you could almost—- you'd almost take—- make it into squares. Wouldn't you. And just sew squares of the material together and then put a knot in each block.

Brooke Bryan: The corner row of each block, maybe?

Juanita Harris: Well, if your squares are small enough you could put, you could put it in the middle of of the square, but you'd have different back in your quilt. It would be a heavier back. And you wouldn't wash it. Well I guess you 01:20:00could wash it, but people used to not wash quilts.

Brooke Bryan: Yeah, a lot of log cabins and things were tied?

Juanita Harris: Yeah. We talked about one thimble.

Brooke Bryan: Did you get another thimble? The one thimble was a gift from your grandmother when you guys went—-

Juanita Harris: Oh I've had many thimbles. I've worn out two or three or four thimbles, made holes in the ends of them. And—- Yes. My thimbles's not very big. My thimble don't fit, so when I'd wear out one I'd have another one and I'd fall back on it. I don't know how many thimbles I've had in my time. I've had 01:21:00lots of them. And then my thimble I'm using now is the one I got for- what do I want to say... When I went to Michael's and Stacey’s wedding. I wanted a souvenir and we went through a store that had all kinds of different things that you could buy and I bought me a silver thimble. I said I've never had a silver thimble, mine's have all been comes in, and I'm gonna buy that silver thimble. And it's pretty tiny, isn't it?

Brooke Bryan: Lovely.

Juanita Harris: It's got a little ridge around the edge of it, right along there. It's beautiful. And it's easy to separate from the other old thimbles I've had. It's a nice thimble. I'm proud of that thimble.

Brooke Bryan: And tell me more about your frames. I think I got some of the story earlier but the frame that you are working on right now is made by your husband and yourself out in the garage.

Juanita Harris: And we all went—- you didn't get that story?

Brooke Bryan: I did get that story I think.

Juanita Harris: Yeah well, we got the pattern off of the old the the—- part of the frames that my mother gave me. After she quit quilting. I asked her if I could have her quilt, if she would let me have her quilt and frames. You know yes you can have them. So I have them up in the garage and we got took a patter off of them. So it would, I would have them bigger than they'd fit the quilts now rather than just a regular quilt. It wasn't made very big when they didn't have big beds.

Brooke Bryan: Well it seems to me that you don't have a regular frame and you don't have any regular quilts. It's all just excellent.

Juanita Harris: You know, I'm proud of my frames. I wouldn't take nothing but frame, but for when my daughter come out and help me put my first quilt in this frame she says, "Mother, I'm going to write down on these frames: You bequeath these frames to Hellen." So it's written, it's written on these frames, on these long, one of these long pieces. She says when you're done with them, I want it them. Now I don't know where the other girls will want them or not but she can loan them. They can all three use them because they're not going to have a quilt or a frame at the same time. So, I suppose that's on this, on these frames. I 01:24:00said, "Well let's get them little old frames up in the garage, they could have them." That would be—- they'd be big enough to make the baby's quilts, but the great great grand babies quilts, or—- my great great grand baby's quilts.. But they'd have to put new cloth on the frames. Fasten—- and I use safety pins. I bought safety pins to pin my—- I used to go down and sew my lining to the—- I don't know what you call this. Muslin lining. And then I'd seen where they had safety pins that you could pin your quilts to the muslin. So I ordered me some of them. And they are—- I have them pinned, there in that little white box right there. And I pin, I put them all about this close together on be both 01:25:00sides and then I pin my—- I don't pin the back but I pin the quilt top to that. On this side, I don't fasten that side. And that's how I keep them fastened to my frames. But they have to be fastened pretty tight, so you can roll them. But I never used, I've used pins the last two or three years. Three or four years maybe... safety pins. And they are a different shape safety pin than they... Do you use pins?

Brooke Bryan: I do have some safety pins that are sort of bent.

Juanita Harris: Yeah. That's the ones that they have crooked. And that's the one's I have. And it makes it a lot faster. And it. It works OK. It works just 01:26:00as good as sewing but it don't take as quite as much time. And they usually use a darning needle when I would sew by lining and I would use a darning needle with maybe crochet thread. And that would be strong enough to hold it where you want it. You—- got while—- got them started to be rolled. I don't think I mentioned the safety pis and how I fastened the quilts in. Glad we got that.

Brooke Bryan: Is there any other thing you can think about from, you know, some significance of a particular quilt, or maybe a phase in your life of quilt making that was, you know, memorable or different than another? Any other sewing 01:27:00gear that has significance?

Juanita Harris: Well, that's my sewing machine. Jimmy got me my first... Well, my first I... I don't know where I, where we come up with the first machine. I don't know where I got my first sewing machine. It was a treadle machine. My mother always had a treadle machine till she just she decided she wanted an electric sewing machine. And one time my old sewing machine and my treadle machine that I always sewed on, I don't know where I got it and I don't remember my first one, but ...Well I got to think on that... one Christmas I I asked 01:28:00them—- well the only thing I'd like to have for Christmas is a sewing machine. I'd really like a sewing machine, and that was in—- there went a rabbi—- a bird, a big bird. He passed right—-

Brooke Bryan: Right outside the window?

Juanita Harris: Right outside. It looked like an owl or something. Anyway, I said one year well, "I really need a sewing machine because my sewing machine is not working very good." With kids or—- Lucy was a baby then. And so that would have been about fifty two or three, fifty one fifty two or fifty three. So Jimmy bought me a sewing machine for Christmas and had it hid over there when we had to store had it hid, he had piled—- They delivered it and he piled toilet 01:29:00paper around it all around it in the store. And I didn't know it was there I worked in the store every day but I didn't move the toilet paper. And there was my sewing machine. So I had a new sewing machine and that was about fifty one fifty two. Well I've had a different head put on it, but that one that I've got on it now I've had it I don't know how many years. And it's a it's a Singer, it's not a Singer. It's a Sears Roebuck. And then my mother gave me her sewing machine. I have it in the bedroom and it's a Singer. And I—- It still sews. I wouldn't take anything from a sewing machine I said I'd rather have a sewing machine as a cook stove. Because I'd rather sew than cook.

Brooke Bryan: You and me both.

Juanita Harris: But that's where my, that's where my first electric now and I've 01:30:00got an electric sewing machine. Well my mother had her treadle machine and, we was down home one day my daughter and me the youngest one and me we go home in the summertime and stay a week or two and after she was—- well, she was in grade school Herman decided to go down home. Jimmy let us go every summer for a week or two when I'd stay and she had a treadle sewing machine before she got that one that I have in there and Lucy said to her one day says, "Grandma can I have that sewing machine?" And she said, "well yeah I guess you can." So when she gave it to her before she died. So she brought it home where she was still 01:31:00at home when she gave it to her. And she had it in her room up over at house and well she she still has it. She doesn't sew on it but it sews it sews good. I used to go up stairs and sit down and sew on it a good bit but she never sewed on treadle, she couldn't she just didn't sew on a treadle machine and she still got it and got the scarf that she had made to put on it. It had drawers on each side and it was a, I think it's a Singer. And it still sews good. She wouldn't take nothing but her grandma's sewing machine. I just gave it to her. But...

Brooke Bryan: You're a master threader. Well, Juanita I think between talking 01:32:00through the quilts the other day and recording everything we said then and I think between that everything we said today, I probably have enough to work with to make something quite interesting.

Juanita Harris: You think you do?

Brooke Bryan: I think so.

Juanita Harris: Don't put stuff in there that you shouldn't.

Brooke Bryan: What shouldn't I?

Juanita Harris: I don't know.

Brooke Bryan: OK. I will be mindful. Is there anything else you would like to mention about your quilts?

Juanita Harris: I don't know. I'm proud of every one of them and every one I make is the prettiest. Every last one I make is the prettiest. Even my son will 01:33:00come along, "Did you quilt any today mother? He will call, "Have you been quilting today?" But no, I've never seen him sit down with a needle and thread. He brings his stuff up here to get mended. Oh he usually tell me, "Well I quilted a little, been quilting much." So... And the girls have never sit down and quilted a stitch on this one, they have never offered to. Not a stitch have they quilted on this—- on any of them.

Brooke Bryan: Any of them?

Juanita Harris: Any of them. And Lucy usually sits down, the youngest girl, Lucy usually sits down and quilts a little bit, just a little—- I've got to quilting a little bit on this one, she's quilted on part of them but not all of 01:34:00them. This maybe a little, just just a little. But now Barb has never quilted and I asked her the other day, "What are you going to do when you retire?" She's thinking about retiring. "What do you”—- that's the oldest. "What are you going to when you retire?" "I don't know I've got lots of closets to clean and rooms to clean and things to do, and stuff to sort." I said, "You're not going to have a hobby like quilting or painting?" She paints. She took painting classes. "You could paint," I says, "you have to something to do because you get done—- you get tired of cleaning after so long a time." And she said, "Well you never taught me how to quilt." I said,"I didn’t—- I didn't teach anybody how to quilt." They just know. Well I've never, she has never quilted. I don't think she's ever sat down and quilted. She said but she likes to sew so I don't 01:35:00know if she'll ever quilt or not. And Melva, I don't know. She don't have time. She's got two little boys. That her and grandpa had to take shopping yesterday. She told me this morning. She called when I was trying to get around this morning. She was at work and said she met grandpa on the two little boys over some Target or someplace and, they're the ones that's in your little girl's class. Brooke Bryan: That's enough to keep anybody busy.

Juanita Harris: So that she's a busy with them boys, all three of them. And the older one, he's busy too so they're they're all busy.

Brooke Bryan: Busy boys.

Juanita Harris: I don't know how she works and keeps on the run with them. I 01:36:00don't know whether she'll ever quilt or not. But she likes to sew that she she don't have time either.

Brooke Bryan: If somebody came and sat and, would you have an extra needle and thread and thimble and show them how to do it or would they have to have their own piece to practice on?

Juanita Harris: Oh I've got extra needles laying here. I've got a needle up and down if I go up there and don't have a needle. I can always thread and I think I put two needles out and I've got to pay—- a package, a pure I've got a couple needles in. Melva sews with too long needles though. She gets great big long needles. I can't I have to have short ones.

Brooke Bryan: Lovely. Well Juanita, thank you so much for bringing me into your home and showing me all of your wonderful wonderful quilts. It's an amazing body of work and you most definitely should be proud.

Juanita Harris: I am proud of every one, I know and... just just like when that 01:37:00man asked me the other day how much I'd take for one of them. I wouldn't sell them. I'd have to I said I'd have to get really have to have the money before I would sell. And I don't know if I could sell them then or not. I know my Grandmother Shockey used to have quilts. And she—- after grandpa died she lived by herself a long time and had a kind of or and didn't have any income. She sold a lot of her work. She done a lot of embroidery work, pretty embroidery work. And she sold a lot of them to have money to live on. And I think she sold her quilt she had stacks of quilts upstairs. When we would go there, she had 01:38:00stacks of quilts that she had made and she done good work I think that's where I got it from: my grandparents and my mother. Because both my grandparents quilted, and embroidery. They loved embroidery, especially Grandma Shockey. Now Grandma Reddon rarely did embroidery, not just grandma Shockey but Grandma Shockey had the prettiest, and she had scarfs all over everything in it was embroidery. So pretty. In fact I've got a little set of them, let me go get them. Grandma Shockey.

Brooke Bryan: Grandmother Shockey is the same one that made the nine patch quilt? No. Oh this is a different one?

Juanita Harris: That is mother's.

Brooke Bryan: Oh OK. Oh my goodness, is that beautiful.

Juanita Harris: Now them was Grandma Shockey's. And I'm satisfied she made. But now see the—- And she embroidery too, she done lots of embroidery work.

Brooke Bryan: It's lovely. Lovely lovely.

Juanita Harris: I think these was the—- I know these come from her her house. 01:40:00They're all stained up. I wouldn't use them. I just keep them put away. And then I went, went to her house one time to help her clean her house. And she had done a lot of laundry and washed a lot of her of her doilies and things and so my job was to iron. And we had, she kept her iron—- she heated her irons on the stove. And then, well I didn't know, I knew how to iron but I didn't know how to iron her embroideries or suit or—- she was particular. She wanted them ironed a certain way. She says, "Juanita. Juani. You always iron—- Now when you iron 01:41:00your embroidery work you iron it on this side." And it was starched. You iron it on the wrong side because- and then that makes your your pattern your embroidery work stand out and pretty. And then she says, "You iron the rest of it with—-“ I didn't iron these. "You iron the rest of it with on the top side and that makes your your material look shiny and pretty.” That's the way she wanted them ironed. Well the big scarfs was OK to iron them that way but the little ones any of them does make them pretty. And she starts to make—- everything was—- all the doilies would start stiff. I remember that. I was. I was. Well I don't know how old I'd be, probably fifteen or so. Sixteen. But 01:42:00that's what she told me. Which which works good. And she made lots of of knots- what do you call them?

Brooke Bryan: Is it called candle wicking?

Juanita Harris: No this knot—- this is—- This is—- it isn’t—- the knots? You call them French knots.

Brooke Bryan: OK.

Juanita Harris: French knots is what you called hem, what she called them. And she made lots of them.

Brooke Bryan: It's lovely, it gives it such three dimensionality.

Juanita Harris: And embroidery work, she done embroidery work well. I don’t—- I've done scarfs with a little bit of embroidery work.

Brooke Bryan: Is this embroidery or is this crochet or pattern?

Juanita Harris: This is crochet she's made—- She's made all of them. And she cut these things out. And then she punch her needle down in there and went 01:43:00around it once.

Brooke Bryan: That's amazingly intricate.

Juanita Harris: I think. Yeah. Because she's she's cut them out.

Brooke Bryan: It's lovely. So lovely.

Juanita Harris: I think I've got an apron in there that she made. And it's got embroidery-— she had always with—- both my grandmothers wore aprons.

Brooke Bryan: I absolutely think they're pretty.

Juanita Harris: I think they're pretty too.

Brooke Bryan: Clearly you have something creative running through your family.

Juanita Harris: I hope it just goes on down the generations.