A letter to Mama carried on a sunbeam

Mama

Mansion SE

Heaven

Dear Mama:

I really don't know your mansion number so have just come up with SE.

Down here we have so many acronyms standing for multiple worded organizations. Shorthand writing, geared to save space on the printed page. So my "SE" stands for "Somewhere else."

Mama, remember the red, green and white "Carpenter's Wheel" patterned quilt you made for me? You won First Prize at the Southeast Missouri District Fair. I stitched the blue ribbon right next to your embroidered autograph on the lining. Your autograph reads "Myrtle C. Bell." All the family knows the C. stands for Casey, the Irish side of our ancestors. And you dated it too. 1969.

I've been careful to remove the ribbon when I wash the quilt and I've washed it a lot. You always said, "Don't put your pretty things away in some chest or closet. Use them."

Well, I've used this quilt and enjoyed its beauty throughout the years. I've noticed that some of the little calico patches are growing thin, almost threadbare. If I could see to thread my sewing machine I'd reinforce these places with all the fancy zig-zag stitches the machine offers. The alternative is to put it away in some chest. But I'm not going to do that. Let it wear out along with me. by-the-way, why doesn't someone invent a self-threading sewing machine? Or have they?

This summer I thought I'd lost that beloved old quilt. I'd had another of your beautiful quilts on my bed and decided I wanted the "Carpenter's Wheel," especially for the holidays. We searched from attic to basement. What it would be doing in the basement I haven't the foggiest notion. But a search is a search. The attic has 1,001 boxes, drawers, nooks and crannies. Everything was emptied and refilled. The living quarters were also searched. It was a real puzzle. Finally it occurred to me that it might be in the guest bedroom, underneath the Log Cabin quilt I use for a spread. There is was! Someone, staying all night with me, probably in the spring, got cold and sought out another quilt to stay warm. I haven't let it out of my sight since.

Sometime I'll tell you about my Log Cabin quilt. I made it after you left. I made several trips to Perryville to get the just right calico at Rozier's store.

We're in a quilt-interested area. Across the Mississippi River, at Paducah, there is an annual quilt fair. Great beauties show up, pictures of which I see in the paper. And I'll tell you about the status of the Kansas City Star quilt. Suffice it now to say that it is on an upstairs bed. With the many red patches in it, when the morning sunbeams touch it, the whole room takes on a pink glow. The yellow patterned wall paper of the ceiling turns a delicate orange hue.

You made that quilt too. That's not the real name of the pattern. I don't know if it has one. We call it that because we got the pattern from the Kansas City Star which had a quilt pattern once a week.

I'm sending this letter on a sunbeam. That's so much safer than our mail down here at the present time.

Love to all my Somewhere Else family. Do you wonder what's taking me so long? I guess I have some unfinished business to take care of.

Mama, I wonder if you ever read this little poem by John Tabb. He was a contemporary of yours. It is told in dialect.

"Unc' Si, dy Holy Bible say,

In speakin' of de jus',

Dat he do fall seben times a day;

Now, how's de sinner wuss?

"Well, chile, de slip may come to all,

But den de diff'ence foller;

For, ef you watch him when he fall,

De jus' man do not waller."

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.