The Memory Quilt Reimagined

In 1951, a 10-year-old named Ellie sat on her grandmother’s porch in rural Georgia,

watching hands gnarled by cotton fields piece together a quilt from scraps: her mother’s wedding

dress, grandpa’s Sunday shirt, a flour-sack baby bonnet.

Grandma called it the Memory Quilt. Every square a story. When the last stitch went in,

she draped it over Ellie’s shoulders. “This keeps the family warm long after I’m gone.”Grandma

died that winter. The quilt went on Ellie’s bed. She grew up, married,

had three kids. The quilt moved with her—first to a tiny apartment, then a house,

then across state lines. By 1985, it was threadbare in spots,