Читать книгу Following the Barn Quilt Trail - Suzi Parron - Страница 16

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OUR LITTLE FAMILY moved on to southern Pennsylvania and a two-week break from travel. With no quilt trail stops to make, we began a series of lackluster stays in chain motels. The rooms were confining with no natural light, as opening curtains meant exposing ourselves to passersby just inches away. I appreciated having the downtime but missed the camaraderie of our visits to LeRoy and Schoharie, and the expansive lawns and pastures that had surrounded us. Restaurant fare was a poor substitute for the home-cooked meals we had enjoyed. And I was irritable from lack of sleep. Glen rises early and by the time I wake, he has been at work for a couple of hours. During our recent stays, he had been able to work in another room, and I could sleep undisturbed. Now we were in a shared space. Glen could not work without light, and I could not sleep with it. The clang of a spoon against a coffee cup, the jangle of Gracie’s leash, the creak of a chair broke both the silence and my rest, and chattering keyboard clicks kept me awake.

The bus would not be ready for another three weeks, and we both were miserable and moody. We could not survive if we allowed our bickering to escalate. With some trepidation, we agreed to state our grievances with an eye toward problem solving rather than recrimination, and together we found solutions. Now Glen’s soft voice woke me each morning, “Here is a towel for your eyes and here are your earplugs. Shh, now go back to sleep.” We agreed that Gracie would wait a couple of hours before her morning walk, a habit that continues to this day. Our mutual dissatisfaction with constant restaurant meals led me to scour cooking websites for motel-friendly dishes. I put together a traveling pantry that included essential spices, then visited a thrift store to find suitable utensils and dishes. Being able to prepare a simple meal of spaghetti with a Caesar salad in our temporary home restored a sense of control. It took a week or so, but together we created a pleasant motel lifestyle. More importantly, the habit that we developed during that difficult time—of sharing our frustrations and asking for each other’s help—has served us well since.

Time away from the quilt trail did give us a chance to explore Pennsylvania. A kayak tour on the Susquehanna River took us through the heart of Harrisburg, a lazy day baking ourselves in the sunshine that we had craved. Gettysburg was a highlight of the year. The battlefields were immense, and driving through them impressed us with just how momentous the fight had been. Glen was especially moved when we stopped to read about a “witness tree” that stood near the road. “Can you imagine? This tree was here, right in the middle of things. It makes you realize that it just was not that long ago.”

Heading west a week later, I was surprised at the terrain. Somehow, the Keystone State of my imagination was mostly flat; instead this was the first time in our trip that we encountered mountains. Part of me was glad to be in the nimble car rather than in the bus as Glen negotiated the twists and turns. Dozens of barns appeared along the roadside—red, white, gray, even yellow—some just a few yards from the highway. Most seemed to be in good repair, and some were larger than any I had seen, grand dames surveying the landscape and marking centuries of change. I couldn’t help wondering how many barns had been lost when the road shoved its way through. After a day’s long drive, we passed through the last tunnel and wound our way down the mountains to Ohio, birthplace of the quilt trail.

The corn was up, and abundant fields lined the roads, vivid green curtains shielding our view for miles at a time. As we neared our destination, a Victorian house with rounded towers and extravagant gingerbread trim popped up out of nowhere; we simultaneously said, “Wow. Look at that!” We drew close and were ready to stop for a closer inspection when we realized that we had arrived at Barb and Jim Gabriel’s home, where we would be staying for the next few days. The interior of the home fascinated us. Dormer windows over each dark-planked door swiveled on pegs, and tall ceilings were higher than even Glen’s long arms could reach.

There is nothing better than waking up to a cool morning with windows open, hearing Glen’s voice from downstairs, enthusiastically engaged in conversation. He would spend the day alone, so this morning social time with our hosts was his. I lingered upstairs for a while, not wanting to break the spell by emerging downstairs before time to hit the road.

As Jim drove, Barb told me a bit about the Hancock County Quilt Trail. Several barn quilts were already in place nearby when Barb decided to create one for their property. Barb was soon working with the Arts Partnership to expand the quilt trail. During an event called Artswalk, a block designed by art teachers was painted by college students but no location for the quilt square had been determined. Jim pointed out the quilt block, mounted on an old grain elevator standing out front of a car dealership. “He didn’t really know what he was agreeing to,” Barb said.

Flowers and Snails

Interest grew, and Barb soon found herself very busy producing barn quilts. Of course, the Gabriels added quilt blocks to their property, a Compass and a variation of the Ohio Star, which are easily visible on new garages next to the drive. One of the buildings is also home to a workshop where both Barb and members of the local community paint quilt blocks.

The quilt design on Dave and Jan Reese’s barn echoed one that was well known to me. The center swirl of their quilt block resembled the Snail’s Trail on Donna Sue and Maxine Groves’s barn in Adams County, but the unusual colors and yellow flowers around the fringes marked it as an original. Jan invited us inside for lavender-infused lemonade and said that she grows flowers, including fragrant lavender, as a business. Before long, we were behind the barn checking out the lavender labyrinth she had created. Now the patterns and colors of Jan’s Flowers and Snails quilt block design made sense.

Dave is the third generation on the family farm and remembers the dairy barn fondly as “full of noise and lots of chaos.” His grandfather purchased the barn in 1918, but through Friends of Ohio Barns, the building was dated to the 1860s. The barn was in poor condition, but Dave and Jan had no qualms about the very costly renovation. “It was really important to us to save the barn,” Dave said. “Jan’s work area has brought new life to the barn; I think the barn quilt symbolizes that new life with the restoration and the barn being repurposed.”

We drove with Dave to nearby Kaleidoscope Farms, where he had started a farm about twenty years earlier. The couple wanted their sons to experience farming because, as Dave said, “There are values that only come from growing up on a farm and having chores—the value of hard work. The farm grew mushrooms and raised sheep and Great Pyrenees dogs, but eventually Christmas trees seemed the most prosperous. Now twelve hundred to two thousand families visit each year. “Seeing my boys interact with customers is priceless,” Dave said. “They learned well, and now the grandkids are set to learn the same values. It’s a dream come true.”

A Double Aster quilt block on the side of a brick building was visible as we approached our next stop. As we got out of the car, Barb pointed out three additional blocks on a barn at the back of the property and introduced me to one of the most ardent supporters of the local effort. Tom Rader welcomed us into the 1870s schoolhouse that he and his wife, Pam, had restored. The exposed wood beams and brick walls of the interior created a wonderful space for antique furnishings and quilts hanging on walls, on racks, and across furniture. Larger pieces in progress stretched out on racks waiting in turn. The studio would have been the envy of many a quilter.

The barn where the three quilt blocks—Star of the East, LeMoyne Star, and an unusual Star Table Runner—hang is a modern building. “When you spend that kind of money on a barn, why not decorate it up?” Tom said. Corn was visible on one side of the property but not in front of those barn quilts. Tom intends to grow only soybeans and wheat so that the quilt blocks that he is so proud of are visible all year. It was no doubt the first time I had heard of a farmer changing his planting scheme to show off his barn quilts.

“Now I look at barns differently,” Tom said. “When I see a barn I tell them it needs a quilt.”

“He gets credit for the whole row in the neighborhood,” Barb added.

Barn quilt trio: (left to right) LeMoyne Star, Star Table Runner, and Star of the East

Barb Gabriel has made lots of new friends through her work and is proud of all that the community has accomplished, both with her help and on their own. Anyone who creates a barn quilt is welcomed to the quilt trail. “I don’t care who paints it,” Barb said. “I want to get them on the trail.”

. . .

Glen and I left the Gabriels and the quilt trail behind and headed to Adams County, where a special event was scheduled for the next evening—a benefit for Donna Sue to help defray her mounting medical expenses. She had survived breast cancer but a host of other health issues remained.