Close to Nowhere - Linda Jones


Thursday, September 6, 2007
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Close to Nowhere
By Linda Jones

My friend Jane

For some reason, I’ve talked about my friend Jane to several people the past couple weeks. And the more I talk about our friendship and the way our lives intertwine, the more I think “this is really weird!”

We’ve known each other for more than 20 years. She and her family moved to our neck of the woods in the very early 1980s. We moved here in 1986.

Both of us grew up in Memphis, Tenn. She lived in Frayser and I lived on the fringes of Frayser and we both went to Westside High School — she was about five years ahead of me, so we didn’t know each other then.

She married a man nicknamed Butch — so did I. They call their oldest son Chris — so do we.

She grew up in the Presbyterian church and I grew up Baptist. When we moved to Mississippi, we both joined Free Springs United Methodist Church.

Now, all this might sound mildly interesting to me and her, but you might be wondering what all the fuss is about.

The “goosebumpy part” began in 1938, in Bruce — with my granddaughter’s great-grandmother on their father’s side.

Inez Collins, or “Mammaw” as several generations called her, pieced an autograph quilt, probably when she and J.C. Collins first married.

I have no idea why, but she never finished the quilt and at her death a couple years ago, Pappaw gave me her unfinished quilt tops.

There were several, all of them old and all beautiful. But that one was different — after all, it had her and Pappaw’s names on it, along with several of their relatives.

Naturally, the first thing I did when I got home with the quilts was spread them out. My husband, whose family also hails from Bruce, even though he grew up in Memphis, was looking at the quilts with me. I have to admit he wasn’t as interested as I was, until he saw a couple of his family members’ names on the quilt.

Remember — this quilt was pieced in 1938.

I carried the quilt tops to church for our youth services that night. I spread that particular quilt out on one of the tables and was pointing out all the Collins’ and then the Covington names and talking about how weird that was.

Jane was standing there looking at the quilt with a really strange look on her face.

Her aunt, Bernice Embry, was the librarian at Bruce for many, many years. So Jane has relatives in that area also.

At least two of them are on that quilt that was pieced in 1938.

Jane and I both got “goosebumpy.” I still get emotional, thinking about it.

• On another quilt topic — I’ve had fabric picked out for Mark and Alli Entwistle’s impending child’s quilt since he first told me about the adoption. Some even came from Scotland!

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