Contrary Wife

Helen Keller was a normal, healthy little girl until she was 19 months old. A serious illness – maybe scarlet fever or meningitis – left her blind and deaf. When Helen was 7 her parents hired 20-year-old Anne Sullivan as her governess. Trachoma had left Anne with very limited sight, but she was a patient and skilled teacher. With Anne’s help, Helen learned to communicate using sign language and to read braille. Eventually Helen even learned to speak. Anne and Helen became lifelong companions. They were awarded honorary degrees from Harvard, Temple University and the Educational Institute of Scotland. They worked tirelessly to oppose war and promote women's suffrage. They fought for equal rights for blacks, and campaigned against segregating people with disabilities. Anne lived to the age of 70. When she passed away, Helen was holding her hand. In 1968, when Helen died, her ashes were placed next to Anne’s in the Washington National Cathedral.

Malala

Today’s block is traditionally called Prairie Queen or True Blue, but Quilt’s Etc. has renamed it in honor of a courageous young woman. Malala Yousafzai’s parents run a chain of schools in northwest Pakistan. In 2009, when she was eleven, Malala published a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC Urdu about her life under Taliban rule. In October 2012 a gunman boarded her school bus and asked for Malala by name. He pointed a gun at her head and fired three times. One shot went through the side of her face and her shoulder. Malala survived and was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England to recover. In trying to silence her, the Taliban unwittingly made Malala the world’s most famous teenager. In October 2014 Malala became the world’s youngest recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Two Nursery Rhyme Quilts

 

For the past year the stitchers at Quilts Etc. in Sandy have been learning about the origins of popular nursery rhymes. If you’ve been following along you won’t be surprised to hear many are based on rather dark events in British history. What I did find surprising is that many of us – though I would have said we have similar genetic and cultural backgrounds – learned quite different versions of these nursery rhymes when we were young. I guess it’s like a game of Gossip: if Grandma never learned the second verse or if she got a few of the words mixed up, that’s the way she’ll teach it to her grandkids. The time I should have used designing and assembling two different nursery rhyme tops was spent on Comic Con, the State Fair and the Greek Festival. With only a few days to spare, I designed ONE quilt, then made it twice.

 

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

Dave Ramsey on education:

“I think the lie we've told people in the marketplace is that a degree gets you a job. A degree doesn't get you a job. What gets you a job is the ability to carry yourself into that room and shake a hand and look someone in the eye and have people skills. These are the things that cause people to become successful.”

On debt:

“Debt is so ingrained into our culture that most Americans can't even envision a car without a payment ... a house without a mortgage ... a student without a loan ... and credit without a card. We've been sold debt with such repetition and with such fervor that most folks can't conceive of what it would be like to have NO payments.”

And on perseverance:

“Nothing happens without focus. Don't try to do everything at once. Take it one step at a time.”

Picket Fence

“For youth, there is no substitute for seeing the gospel lived in our daily lives. The stripling warriors did not have to wonder what their parents believed. They said, “We do not doubt our mothers knew it.” Do our children know what we know? I have a grandson who once asked me to go with him to a popular but inappropriate movie. I told him I wasn’t old enough to see that film. He was puzzled until his grandmother explained to him that the rating system by age didn’t apply to Grandpa. He came back to me and said, ‘I get it now, Grandpa. You’re never going to be old enough to see that movie, are you?’ And he was right!” – Elder Robert D. Hales