Hand-Made Quilts For Sale

Abstract

Shop on Lookout Mountain near Charles Counts' pottery shop Hand-Made Quilts For Sale by MRS. PAUL RAMSEY PHOTOS BY T. FRED MILLER The farm was a long, narrow strip of land in Ware's Valley. The spring garden looked green and promising, even though there had been too much rain. A man rested on a folding chair in the shed, watching his beautiful young grandson play with a dog. In the driveway was a visitor's Cadillac, probably owned a motel over at Pigeon Forge. The neatly-lettered sign on the post said, "Hand-Made QUILTS For-Sale." "Yes, ma'am, I have some quilts. They're right over here, on the divan. Would you like to see them?" and she began removing the plastic bags. One by one, she unfolded them. Around the World, Nine Diamonds, Four H, Road to California, Umbrella Girl. "Yes, ma'am, they's all for sale. I get $60 to $100 for them, depending on the size and the pattern. Folks don't want to pay what they're worth. They don't know how much goes into making a quilt. I've been making them for over forty years, started when I was ten, and made them for all my family and grandchildren. 'Course I don't have to make them no more, but it gives me something to do. Tve got arthritis and can't do all I used to. I sell enough to buy my material and keep on with quilting, to 15 keep busy. A body has to have something to do. I'd starve, though, if I had to do it for a living."» ß ? ß « The New Salem Community On top of Lookout Mountain, "plum out a' Tennessee, nelly out a' Georgia," lies the New Salem community. The highway crosses the mountain, up from Trenton, on one side, down to Lafayette, on the other, but plenty of folks remember when there wasn't a highway, and scarcely a road. Frank Baisden first hiked up the mountain to New Salem in 1927 to do some drawings and watercolors of Newsom Gap. He had graduated from the Philadelphia Academy of Art, spent a year in Europe on a fellowship, and, after six years, was home again. His father was investing in a promising land development company at the foot of the mountain. He commissioned Frank to prepare illustrations for a brochure which would attract prospective buyers. Frank liked the area at once and bought a few acres on the bluff, while the land company went broke in the stock market crash. With the help of local carpenters, he built a small cabin which has subsequently had several additions. He was instrumental in seeing that the Newsom Gap Road was built to give the mountain settlers access to the valley. Once a week, after that, the peddler's wagon creaked up the steep dirt road to bring a few supplies to the scattered residents. Housewives exchanged their butter and eggs for a few staples, a little calico, needles and thread, and sometimes a roll of cotton batting. They planned carefully for what they needed most with their little bit of barter. It wasn't easy to make a living from the soil and keep a family going. Eventually Frank introduced two other artists, Fannie Mennen and Virginia Dudley, to the bluff. They, too, felt the power and beauty of the scenery and chose to build neighboring studios there. The University of Chattanooga hired Frank as Instructor of Art at $2,500 a year. It was the Depression and nearly everyone in New Salem was out of work. Even with his modest salary, Frank could afford a carpenter occasionally, for the going rate was a dollar a day. Fifty cents was enough for lesser work. Some thirty years later, one of his neighbors said, "Frankie, we was mighty grateful fer the way you helped us out during those years when thar warn't no work." Recently, the same gratitude was expressed after an ice storm, when a successful lumberman brought his crew in to clear Frank's long drive, taking only the fallen wood in payment. At the other end of the mountain...