Quilting and Patchwork

Square Dancing & Quilting Bees

by Mary Emma Allen on March 1st, 2008

QuiltingAndPatchwork.com  

As I watched the first and second graders learning to square dance in music class, at the school where I was substitute teaching, I recalled my younger years in a farming community. Our 4-H leader taught my friends and me to square dance, waltz, and polka.

This prepared us for the monthly community square dances organized by the fire department and ladies auxiliary of firemen’s wives. Children and adults, whole families attended these social events in our town.

The ladies also served refreshments consisting of their home baked goodies. These they sold to raise money for the fire department.

 Quilting Bee Dances

This reminds me of quilting bee times when the ladies gathered at one another’s homes. Then in the evening, the menfolk and sometimes the children, joined for a meal and games or dancing.

If there was space in the hay barn, a place was cleared for square dancing. A neighbor might play his fiddle and call the moves.

It’s interesting, I find, how various memories can be connected to one’s own quilting, as well at that done in history.

Do you have any quilting bee and/or square dancing memories to share?

©2008 Mary Emma Allen

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