Fabric Records

Many ladies got together in quilting bee parties to catch up on the news of the neighborhood while they stitched a quilt top with batting and a backing together. Sometimes the quilts were for the hostess' home or as a gift for a bride and groom, an upcoming baby shower, or as a commemorative memory quilt for a pastor leaving for new fields or somebody moving away. Sometimes the ladies would embroider their signature and the date on a solid  square and sew it into a patterned patchwork block to be donated to a group project and sewn together with others' blocks to make a signature friendship quilt.

 

My mother dug around in her stash of keepsakes awhile back and found this signed bath towel.  She received it at a baby shower the ladies at church gave her when I was about to make my  appearance. While not paper, it is an embroidered record of members of mom's church at the time, some of whom have passed on to their reward in heaven such as Edna Thimes. 

I was able to decipher most of the names embroidered on the towel and they are: Bonnie Alt, Mrs. Alt, Dorothy E., Amy Fagan, Lucille Harvey, Sarah Hite, Mrs. Leicht, Bertie Loomis, Mary Rapsilber, Frances Olson, Kathleen Sager, Edna Thimes, & Jan Tins. They were the Women of the Church of God (Anderson, IN) who attended the First Church of God in Kansas City, Wyandotte County, Kansas during the 1950's. 

The purpose of this article is to tell you about FAN research. I search for the FAN's of my ancestors. FAN's are friends, associates and neighbors, so I research not only my ancestors, but also their FAN's, hoping to connect the dots (primary doc'uments) between them. You can find FAN's everywhere -- in autograph books and school yearbooks, in census records (look at the people above and below your ancestors' as the people were often neighbors), in their church fundraising cookbook, membership roster, minutes, and telephone directory, from signed greeting cards and postcards,  in history books that mention Old Settlers Club and other social groups like that, sometimes in land records if remaining neighbors purchased their land, lockets containing hair,  paintings or photographs, in letters, or  marriage records, in newspaper articles such as auction ads or who visited whom, on cross-stitched samplers to signed quilts, scrapbooks, and towels.  Hope your ancestors saved such mementoes of their FAN's, because they now become your treasured heirlooms of their friends, associates, and neighbors. Any record, fabric or paper, helps construct your ancestor's story. 

More to Read: 

1. Family Crafting
2. Edna Thimes' biography

3. Quilting in America

4. Antique Quilt History

Written by Dolores J. Rush, Updated: 10/25/2019

My Dad's Birthday

Today would have been my dad's 88th birthday had he lived this long! He was a handy man to have around as he was an air-conditioning and heating serviceman. He also knew about refrigeration and motors and electricity. It would irritate my mother to no end when he would take a small greasy engine apart and put it back together on our kitchen table. I took his talents for granted until he passed away several years ago, four days before my parent's anniversary, of a sudden heart attack. 

His funeral service verse was,

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write:

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on."

"Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor,

for their deeds will follow them."

~ Revelation 14: 13,

because I made a note of it in my Bible. 

A girlfriend found this bazaar poem for work gloves somewhere and sent it to me when I was a preschool Sunday School teacher.  I had to rework it a bit so that my class could give a gift of gloves to their daddies for Father's Day; however today I'm posting this in memory of my dad!

Dad's Gloves Craft.

Supplies needed:
a computer generated copy of the poem
1 pair of men's brown jersey work gloves per child (I saw some at a salvage store for 50 cents a pair here; sometimes you can purchase them in a bundle; my Dad's favorite thing to do was to buy in bulk! *grin*)
1 brown paper lunch bag per child
a piece of brown twine, abt. 8 inches long or so
appropriate tool rubber stamps and dark brown or black dye ink pad
or black and white printed clip-art 
glue or paste, hole punch, & pinking sheers

Instructions:
Stamp tool images all over the front of the bag with the ink or color in the clip-art, cut out and glue to bag.  Trim around the pre-printed poem with pinking sheers, and paste it to the front of the bag. Then place the gloves in the bag, fold the top over a couple of times, and punch two holes in the middle about an inch apart. Thread the jute through and tie into a bow. Dad's gift is finished! 

(Note about poem: "I", in the personal sense, was written as their Sunday School teacher, but it can changed to the corporate "we", as in siblings shopping together. Use as needed.)

Father's Gloves
Author Unknown.

 I went shopping store to store
For one gift that fits all,
Some were too tall, some too wide,
But many were just too small.

 The mystery was solved when I saw
The perfect gift for every male,
It’s just the right size for their dads
And it even was on sale!

  

It fits the hands that mow the grass
And takes the garbage out.
It fits when dads are pumping gas
Or moving things about.

 It fits for this and fits for that,
And on and on you see.
I’m sure you might have a chore or two,
Or maybe even three.

 So free your hands of cuts and scrapes, dad,
On all the jobs you do.
As you slide each hand in a glove;
remember the love they have for you.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!

Rush Reunion 2015

Tis the season again. I'm addressing Rush Reunion reminders to go out snail mail for this year's reunion. Hopefully, there won't be any snafu's with the city like last year (double-booking the shelter), as we have had the same time, same day of the week and month for many years in the same ole spot, paid in advance. But, just in case we run into the same problem, it might be wise to bring lawn chairs and a card table to hold your contribution to our family potluck or a TV tray to eat from because we're having it there again!

If you haven't gotten a reminder in a while, it could be that you have forgotten to send me your new address when you moved, so if you would like to be reinstated to the list, please drop your current name/ address in the comments below along with a statement about how you are related to the Rush family. I promise I will not publish your address on this website. Please note that spam ad comments WILL BE DELETED. 

If you have never been on the Rush reunion reminder list and would like to be, please drop your current snail mail address in the comments below and tell me how you are related to the Rush family. Again, I promise I will not publish your address nor sell or rent it to any advertisers. I don't like spam in my mailbox anymore than you do!

If you have a question about the reunion, drop it into the comment box below and click on "notify me" checkbox before publishing your question or return in a couple of days for my reply below your question. If you want to keep your identity private, type in only your first name or a nickname. 

By the way, here's a FREE template pattern for the fan above. David's grandmother had a wooden shingle fan with three blades which I traced around to make my blue and white rubber-stamped paper fan above. 

See you at the reunion! 

A Moment in Time Ephemera

Some people like to use 3-D decorations in their heritage scrapbooks of the ancestors, but I, personally, don’t like bumpy albums with dented pages. I do like using personal keepsakes, however, that bring my ancestors to life and thought I would compile a list of flat ephemera one could use. Take time to plunder the attics, closets, dressers, hope chests, jewelry boxes, junk drawers, photo albums, recipe boxes, scrapbooks, sewing cabinets, and writing desks of your grand-relatives for mementoes before the estate sale.

Note: Reproduce good quality permanent copies of paper documents at your local printer and archive the originals in a fireproof document box. Ink-jet photocopies are temporary in nature and might fade over time.

address labels, alphabet stencils (new and used), autographs, baseball trading cards, botanical illustrations, bookmarks, calling/business cards, cancelled checks, car keys, certificates (adoption, award, birth, church membership, death, guarantees, marriage, military, prize, stock, Sunday School promotion, warranties) children’s artwork, church bulletins, clothing tags, candy packaging labels (candy bar, crackerjack, gum wrappers, Valentine), dance cards, desk calendar pages, dog tags, flashcards, garden catalogs, garden seed packets, hair ribbons, embroidery thread, favorite poetry (Bible verses, quotes), feathers, flattened spice tin fronts, foreign coins (tokens), funeral leaflets, graduation diploma, handwritten recipes, hankies, images from a favorite book, lace, lacy gloves, ledger, library cards, guest-books (guest check receipts), journal and diary accounts, letters, a lock of hair (hair-nets), locker tag, maps (paper), menus, old-fashioned packaging labels, old greeting cards,  old schoolbook pages, measuring tapes, needle threader, newspaper clippings, old magazine ads, old patterns (envelopes with images and tissue patterns), old typewriter keys, paper doilies, paper dolls, patches, photos of heirlooms (favorite toys), photographs of their homes, perfume bottle labels, pinked swatches of calico and gingham feedsack fabric, playing cards, postcards,  pressed flowers, printed tablecloths,

quilt patterns, receipts, report cards, rickrack, school papers, a sequin from a special dress, sheet metal jewelry (photos of jewelry), sheet music, silhouettes, slides, stereoscopic viewing cards, suitcase stickers, theater programs, ticket stubs, traced hands or feet cut-outs, travel brochures, utility bills/receipts, used envelopes, used postage stamps, vintage Valentines, vintage wrapping paper, wallpaper remnants, watch parts (crystals, faces, hands, gears), wedding invitations, and wedding dress fabric.

Postscript: I stumbled across a Civil War quilt blog and she had an article on Albums: Silk and Paper. Another item to add to the list to look for!

 Compiled by Dolores J. Rush, Updated: 9/29/2019

Family Crafting

Once upon a time, many young ladies were taught practical skills necessary to run households and provide clothing and meals for their future families. Mothers were the primary teachers, but grandmothers and aunts, if they lived nearby, assisted in the lessons. Boys learned from the men in the family to furnish their families' meat for the table by hunting and fishing. Woodworking skills helped build log cabins and furniture, but today we mostly craft, not out of necessity, but as fun hobbies.

Deliah (BAILEY) LARUE was a milliner (ladies hat-maker) and seamstress by trade. Mom said she can remember Grandma Deliah "Della" coming to visit and making several dresses for her out of matching feed-sacks when a schoolteacher sent a note home from school saying mom’s dresses was immodestly too short. 

One of her daughters, Maurine ULLOM, crocheted lovely afghans and doilies for all her children and grandchildren and taught me how to crochet too. I have a quilt she made me for high school graduation. Later, my mother sewed clothing for my siblings and I. To earn a badge, I learned some simple embroidery skills and knitting from a Girl Scout leader. My sister, joining the home sales team of Creative Moments, taught us how to photo-scrapbook. I took that a step further and taught myself how to rubber stamp, thinking to use it in my scrapbooks later.

Gladys (WHITE) O’NEAL made wedding cakes for years and to decorate them, she made ceramic figures. She taught my mother how to make and paint molded ceramics and my mother, in turn, taught ceramic classes for many years at Janet’s Ceramics. Mom crafted a lacy background arch with a light on a white ceramic base for our Precious Moments wedding figurine that decorated our wedding cake. Sadly the whole thing broke during one of our moves. She also made porcelain dolls and now paints realistic watercolors. 

Bertha (GOLDEN) CARRENDER, crocheted also. She made us a lovely white crocheted tablecloth for a wedding gift. David's mother also crochets and makes tied patchwork quilts.

Nanny Marie RUSH, sewed quilts out of feedbag fabric and crocheted. She was a member of a homemaker’s craft club near where she lived. Both she and my mother-in-law showed me how to make several small crocheted gift items and I have written out the directions to several on my craft blog. Click on links to articles.

Crocheted Potholders

Crocheted Framed Christmas Cards

Last Supper

Scrap Pincushion

My Sunbonnet Card