Gramma Gigi's pumpkin quilt which became a story about Uncle Jack Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on September 10, 2017 at 12:30pm View Blog

My family was blended long before that became a fashionable term. My parents divorced in 1958 (I was 3) and my dad, who had custody of my sister Bev and I remarried a wonderful woman in 1959 who became Mom to us and gave us our sister, Denise. Mom was a 26 year old secretary with her own car and the family lore is that Dad married her for that car! Not true I am sure because it was a love match that lasted 56 years, the last 34 of them in a harder circumstance when my Dad lost his eyesight and some brain function due to strokes at 49 years old. Mom was and is a trooper. She hung in there with him, loving him and us all those years. My mom had three brothers, Don, who was a milkman, Bill who was an electrician and sign painter, and Jack who was a carpenter. Jack always had the most beautiful warm and welcoming smile and a great sense of humor. He lived next door to my Gramma (Mom's mom) so we always saw him as well when we visited Gramma and Grampa Taylor. When I made the quilt, I was not thinking of Uncle Jack but when it was time to put the cross stitch of Mr. Jack O'Lantern and the quote on the back, "I never met a pumpkin I didn't like," it came naturally to me to add "and Jack (implied jack-o-lantern) was always my favorite uncle." This sparked many happy childhood memories of my uncle and the family I was NOT born into that made me so welcomed. As a side bonus, Jack's daughter Chris, contacted me on facebook and she had immediately made the connection between her dad, my uncle, and the quilt. Happiness all around!