My Mom and Dad….Lois and Buddy…. got married on this day in 1939!!!

Here is what my Mom once wrote about their courtship and marriage…..

A friend named Curtis told me about the Swinson family who were moving to an adjoining farm.  He said they had a son named Buddy and he wanted me to meet him.  He said Buddy was 18 and so smart he could just do anything.  He was good looking and strong too.  Everyday he told me how great Buddy was.  About a week later, I was on the bus heading to school and Buddy rode a horse right up to the window of our bus and looked in.  Curtis stood up and pointed to me and said “There she is Buddy!”.  He then looked at me and said “that’s Buddy!”.  Buddy told me later that he looked at me in my little red coat with a fur collar and long brown hair and decided that Curtis was right and that he had to meet me.  The following Saturday night Curtis gave a party and invited everyone.  Mama, Daddy and all us kids walked to the party.  The kids played games while the older ones visited.  When the party was over, Buddy and his sister walked in our direction.  Buddy walked up beside me and caught hold of my hand.  I started to move it but then I thought “that’s a nice feeling” so I left it there.  We dated from that night on.  We were always together on weekends and several nights during the week he and his sister would come over and play dominoes. 

After we had been dating for about 9 months, he asked me to marry him.  Before I could mention this to my parents I heard Mama say that she hoped her girls had better sense than to marry farmers.  That fixed it.  I decided if she was against it, I just wouldn’t tell her.  We would elope.

In 1939, when school turned out for the Christmas holidays, I stacked my books in my desk for the last time.  After Christmas, I went to stay a few days with Sister.  Buddy came up after me and on the 28^th, we went to preacher Will Cox and asked him to marry us.  Even though he had preached for us for years, he told us that he couldn’t marry us because he was not an ordained minister.  We went back to Sister’s house and found that they had already gone to bed.  Rather than wake them, we sat up all night and talked.  The next morning on the 29^th, Sister went with us to the little town of May.  Buddy went to the domino parlor and pulled the Reverend Dill out of a domino game.  We went back to the parsonage and were married.

Memories of Lois Swinson

When they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary back in 1989, I was very new in my quilting career but I wanted to make them a quilt to commemorate their years together.

Since Cross-Stitch had been my “previous” craft, I started out with a Cross-stitched block for the center of the quilt…

As I thought about their life, I added these blocks…..

This scrap basket for my Mom’s love of quilts and hand-made things.

My Dad served in World War II so this block was for him…..

They had a 100-acre farm that they LOVED…..

…and Dad put in a HUGE garden every summer so a “Corn & Beans” block was a necessity…..

Mom and Dad loved to play domino games (especially “Forty-Two”) so “Hand’s All Around” was another choice…..

Dad was an amazing Handy Man and could fix ANYTHING!!! Many of my fondest memories of him were working in the garage with him on his latest project!!

So….the “Handy Andy” block became “Handy Buddy”…..

Finally, I was the only child so there needed to be a Baby Block for me……

When this quilt was made, I had discovered the joy of Machine Quilting but hadn’t learned the Free-motion part of it. Consequently, this quilt was sparsely quilted and all designs (even the curves) were done with a Walking Foot and Monofilament thread…..

Here is the finished quilt…..

It hung in my parent’s living room until I took it down in 2013 when we closed Mom’s house.

On this day I always think about Buddy and Lois and their 60 years together and how thankful I am for them!!

Thanks for letting me share those memories with you too!!!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In this blog, I post stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.

Type your email…

Subscribe