Quilts, Warmth, and Tea Cakes
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by Patsy McCrory
ave you ever eaten Thanksgiving dinner under a quilt? farm houses with no insulation and only fireplaces or pot-bellied, The Coffey family in Oxford, MS, frequently did. wood-burning stoves for heat. Most homes did not have electricity I was a journalism/English liberal arts student at Ole in Benton County, MS, until the 1950’s when TN Valley Authority Miss in 1969 when I did a feature story about Mrs. Gladys Waller finally installed power lines out into the countryside. Coffey, the mother of my supervisor at the Bank of Oxford. I My grandmother had handmade quilting frames supported worked there to put myself through college after my father’s death. by two wooden saw horses. She laid out her lining fabric on the Mrs. Wilma Coffey Bunch, who later became one of the bank’s floor and covered it with soft, hand-carded cotton she grew in her vice-presidents, took me to meet her mother to help me complete own cotton fields. She allowed me as a child to card the cotton an assignment for Dr. Jere Hoar’s feature writing class at the Ole filler to remove the seeds and debris and to fluff the fibers. The Miss Journalism Department. carding combs were two flat wooden paddles with wire bristles Mrs. Coffey was a lovely lady with the same crinkly eyes as her mounted with fairly long handles. She sewed her quilt top pieces daughter. Both had that warm, winning smile. Her specialty was together in all kinds of designs first with the help of a foot-pedal beautiful, elaborate French-style hand-embroidered designs with Singer sewing machine and later with an electric Singer sewing bright colorfast threads on solid background fabrics. Her frames machine. Once all the blocks were sewn together in strips, she were in her dining room and hung put colored fabric strips between the from chains from the ceiling above blocks to make a variety of designs. Recipe for basic Tea Cakes used her dining room table. When family The pieced top was applied last on by her grandmother Zelma McCullar: came for Thanksgiving, she would the lining on the floor. One-inch Ingredients: simply roll up the frames above the wide white fabric strips about six 2 eggs table and they ate their meal literally inches long were pinned at three1 c. sugar under her latest, incomplete quilt inch intervals along the top and bot½ c. shortening or butter (or 1 stick of margarine) creation. tom edges of the whole quilt. There 1 Tbs. milk I was drawn to quilting as a subwere holes in each end of the tops of 1 tsp. vanilla flavoring ject for my feature story because my her saw horses. She rolled up the lin2 ½ c. self-rising flour. own grandmother, Zelma McCuling and the batting and the pieced Instructions: Place your flour in a bowl, making a hole lar of Ashland, MS, made beautiful quilt top with the two frame poles. in the center. Slowly add sugar, shortening/butter/ hand pieced quilts. She was “Ma” to She secured them to the two saw margarine that has been softened to room temperame and the other 13 grandchildren horses by inserting old Ford tractor ture, eggs, milk and vanilla. Mix like making biscuits and to dozens of foster children she gas intake valves to hold the frames by hand. When all ingredients are mixed, pinch off littook into her home. She was left a in place. She would sit leaned over tle balls and pat them flat. Place on a greased cookie sheet. (You can spray it with Pam.) Bake at 350° until widow with three daughters to raise the frames and would quilt one twolight brown on the bottoms. Place on a cooling rack. during the Depression. She often foot strip at a time. Then, she would hired herself out to ladies in the roll that completed strip and move community to do quilting for them for $2 or $3 a week. Her secto the next two-foot strip until the whole quilt was completed. ond husband also died of cancer and left her with two more chilAs a child I played at her feet under those quilting frames. dren and a farm to keep up. She died at the age of 80 in 1983 havThat was my playhouse as I served my dolls tea on a Blue Willow ing made quilts and pillows for every family member. metal toy tea set. Ma always had tea cakes she made for her 14 Our town had a shirt factory where most of the ladies were grandchildren whenever they visited. The recipe was a simple one hired to sit at sewing machines all day to sew shirts, skirts, blouses that called for flour, sugar, her homemade butter (which I often and dresses for sale by a manufacturer under several different labels. churned for her), Watkins vanilla flavoring, a little milk and eggs It was a “sweatshop” operation literally because the building was not produced by her chickens (which I helped to feed). air conditioned in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. Community ladies knew She needed many quilts in her antebellum farmhouse because when the maintenance staff would take the leftover fabric scraps none of the bedrooms was heated. Only the living room had a to the dump. They would be waiting to pick through the many pot-bellied stove and the kitchen had a Home Comfort woodboxes of scraps to take home for their own quilts. My grandmother, burning stove for cooking. It had a warming bin on top, four mother and aunts were some of the first to take advantage of the “eyes” for cooking and a place for burning the logs under each. huge source of free quilt scraps. Before then, local quilters recycled Beside the oven was mounted a tank for heating water to use for the family’s old clothes to make their quilts -- a necessity in drafty doing the dishes afterward. 14
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