The Keeping Quilt
By Patricia Polacco
When my Great-Gramma Anna came to America, she wore the same thick
overcoat and big boots she had worn for farm work. But her family
weren’t dirt farmers anymore. In New York City her father’s work
was hauling things on a wagon, and the rest of the family made
artificial flowers all day.
Everyone was in a hurry, and it was so crowded, not like in backhome
Russia. But all the same it was their home, and most of their
neighbors were just like them.
When Anna went to school, English sounded to her like pebbles
dropping into shallow water. Shhhhh…..Shhhhh…...Shhhhh. In six
months she was speaking English. Her parents almost never learned,
so she spoke English for them, too.
The only things she had left of backhome Russia were her dress and
the babushka she liked to throw up into the air when she was dancing.
And her dress was getting too small. After her mother had sewn her
a new one, she took her old dress and babushka. Then from a basket
of old clothes she took Uncle Vladimir’s shirt, Aunt Havalah’s
nightdress, and an apron of Aunt Natasha’s.
“We will make a quilt to help us always remember home,” Anna’s
mother said. “It will be like having the family in backhome Russia
dance around us at night.”
And so it was. Anna’s mother invited all the neighborhood ladies.
They cut out animals and flowers from the scraps of clothing. Anna
kept the needles threaded and handed them to the ladies as they
needed them. The border of the quilt was made of Anna’s babushka.
On Friday nights Anna’s mother would say the prayers that started
the Sabbath. The family ate challah and chicken soup. The quilt
was the tablecloth.
Anna grew up and fell in love with Great-Grandpa Sasha. To show he
wanted to be her husband, he gave Anna a gold coin, a dried flower,
and a piece of rock salt, all tied into a linen handkerchief. The
gold was for wealth, the flower for love, and the salt so their
lives would have flavor.
She accepted the hankie. They were engaged.
Under the wedding huppa, Anna and Sasha promised each other love and
understanding. After the wedding, the men and women celebrated
separately.
When my Grandma Carle was born, Anna wrapped her daughter in the
quilt to welcome her warmly into the world. Carle was given a gift
of gold, flower, salt, and bread. Gold so she would never know
poverty, and flower so she would always know love salt so her life
would always have flavor, and bread so that she would never know
hunger.
Carle learned to keep the Sabbath and to cook and clean and do
washing.
“Married you’ll be someday,” Anna told Carle, and…
again the quilt became a wedding huppa, this time for Carle’s
wedding to Grandpa George. Men and women celebrated together, but
they still did not dance together. In Carle’s wedding bouquet was
a gold coin, bread, and salt.
Carle and George moved to a farm in Michigan and Great-Gramma Anna
came to live with them. The quilt once again wrapped a new little
girl, Mary Ellen.
Mary Ellen called Anna, Lady Gramma. She had grown very old and was
sick a lot of the time. The quilt kept her legs warm.
On Anna’s ninety-eight birthday, the cake was a kulich, a rich cake
with raisins and candied fruit in it.
When Great-Gramma Anna died, prayers were said to lift her soul to
heaven. My mother Mary Ellen was now grown up.
When Mary Ellen left home, she took the quilt with her.
When she became a bride, the quilt became her huppa. Fro the first
time, friends who were not Jews came to the wedding. My mother wore
a suit, but in her bouquet were gold, bread, and salt.
The quilt welcomed me, Patricia, into the world…
and it was the tablecloth for my first birthday party.
At night I would trace my fingers around the edges of each animal on
the quilt before I went to sleep. I told my mother stories about
the animals on the quilt. She told me whose sleeve had made the
horse, whose apron had made the chicken, whose dress had made the
flowers, and whose babushka went around the edge of the quilt.
The quilt was a pretend cape when I was in the bullring, or
sometimes a tent in the steaming Amazon jungle.
At my wedding to Enzo-Mario, men and women danced together. In my
bouquet were gold, bread, and salt—and a sprinkle of wine, so I
would always know laughter.
Twenty years ago I held Traci Denise in the quilt for the first
time. Someday she, too, will leave home and she will take the quilt
with her.
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