Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 12, 1992 TAG: 9203110220
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Long
No matter. Nelda Pearson's students are on to her at this point.
They've been working on the quilt since the beginning of the Radford University semester. And no, this isn't a home economics class - it's sociology.
Specifically, it's the study of Appalachian women. And most of the 12 young women who take the class are from Northern Virginia.
They registered for the class with stereotypical notions of Appalachia - images of women in granny boots and bonnets, of poor folks sitting around wood stoves playing banjos, and broken-down cars and shacks lining curvy mountain roads.
In atypical fashion, the outspoken Pearson went with the subtle approach.
She wanted them to learn the Appalachian tradition of sharing, but without announcing her goal. Instead, she put out a few rulers, pairs of scissors and spools of thread - and told them to start making quilt squares.
She also wanted them to discard the idea that all native Southwest Virginians are backwards, uneducated and poor. But she didn't tell them that directly, either.
Pearson didn't want to just lecture on Appalachian communities. She wanted them to experience it themselves.
Granted, the notion of mountain women gathering in quilting circles is somewhat of a stereotype itself. Especially when most working women don't have time these days for the labor-intensive process of quilt-making.
But Pearson had her own reasons for choosing the project: She's quilted herself ever since she moved to this area from Northern Illinois in 1975.
A self-taught quilter, Pearson started her first piece out of aggravation. Her visiting father, clearing some of the brush on her land, whacked down some of her favorite trees.
Rather than yelling and screaming, Pearson began cutting and sewing. The result was her first patterned Lone Star, a quilt that hangs over her bed today.
"The mountain women called quilting `settling work,' " she said. "When they were upset they quilted."
They also gathered in quilting groups to socialize and to help people, often donating their quilts to needy families.
Pearson wonders, too, if quilting wasn't done as an artistic outlet: "I can't paint, but I can quilt," she said. "I can create things with colored cloth, which is very satisfying, and I often think the mountain women felt the same way."
Pearson has weaved these lifestyle motifs into her course with a patchwork-quilt approach. On Tuesdays she lectures, so far covering the mountain economy from the pre-coal 1800s to the present - specifically its effects on women. On Thursdays, Pearson and her students quilt, talking about mountain life and such sewing maneuvers as the backstitch.
In the beginning, of course, talk centered more on the backstitch and lining up squares and, "Where have the scissors gotten to?"
Pearson, keeping a careful watch, noticed that some students were less eager to share the supplies than others. She also noticed that those who readily shared finished their squares just as fast as the ones who hogged the tools.
"It's such an American need for us to have our own of everything," that some students naturally, perhaps subconsciously, tried to keep the tools to themselves, she said.
As the group has gotten more involved, cooperation is becoming second nature. In lectures, Pearson draws parallels from group activities like quilting to the general mountain lifestyle of the early 1800s when money was scarce, bartering was big and families were self-sufficient.
The basis for mountain independence is the creed: "Always share, but never ask for help," Pearson said in class. "It comes from that combination of communal activities and independence."
Senior sociology major Connie Fields nodded as Pearson lectured on the current mixed economy of rural mountain communities - based on a mixture of cash crops, hunting and gathering, paid labor and home production of gardens and crafts.
"She's describing my life," Fields, a 25-year-old Abingdon native, said afterwards. "The class makes me feel closer to part of where I came from."
Fields' grandmother made white oakwood baskets to sell at craft stores, and her father grew tobacco in Washington County.
"I think the class is having quite an impact on the folks from far away," she added. "They looked at me with full curiousity when I explained the process of growing tobacco."
The Northern Virginia students seem to equally like the communal aspects of quilt-making.
"I'm from Long Island originally, and I hadn't experienced anything like this before really," said senior journalism major Karen Zuckerman of Fairfax. "I think it's really cool."
That's exactly the reaction Pearson was hoping for. She's also noticed some of the students have dispensed with the stereotypes. Course requirements called for them to volunteer at Pulaski's Share, a food-buying cooperative, and at an extended day care for the elderly - for the sheer experience of community interaction.
"Students generally don't want to move outside the university community," Pearson said.
But with a little prodding, that's changing for these young women as they gain new respect for Appalachian people and for quilters. The students have decided to donate the finished quilt to an area charity.
"The biggest battle here is not just economic development, but fighting those stereotypes - the idea that all you're gonna see here is abject poor people who do quaint old stuff with no skills or ambition," Pearson said. "When in fact, I've never seen a group of more enterprising people in my life."
Memo: CORRECTION