Smith: Why the quilt lady took them back

Lori Olson Oliver’s unusual request was met with considerable resistance.

For about 35 years, Oliver, who manages the library at R.L. Stevens School south of Santa Rosa, has made people splendid, personalized quilts. Hundreds of friends, relatives and past or present Wright District co-workers treasure the quilts she gave them to honor their birthdays, weddings, children’s births, anniversaries, retirements and other occasions, or to comfort them at a difficult time.

Oliver also sold quilts and made others for fundraisers. Some recipients cuddle up with or admire those quilts, or lay them across their laps, every day. So it was jarring for Oliver to ask for them back.

Asked what she’d like for her 60th birthday, she’d decided, “I want a quilt show. I want to see some of those quilts that I made.”

She desired to see and show as many of the quilts that she could arrange to display at R.L. Stevens School. She understood when some of the recipients she contacted were hesitant about letting go of theirs, for even a few days.

“They’d be handing it to me and still holding onto it,” she said. “People don’t have bad memories about quilts.”

Oliver swore they’d be watched against excessive or dirty-hand touching.

The show happened Saturday. Friends and school colleagues helped Oliver hang about 100 of her quilts and wall panels along the quad walkways and from the shade tree at the courtyard’s center.

She beamed, “People don’t usually get to see your body of work all back again.”

Wright District staffers, parents and students studied the fabric art and read the pinned-on notes that recounted a quilt’s occasion and history.

There was one Evan Drake received from Oliver upon his birth in 1997. The note read, “Evan has slept with his baby quilt his whole life and is currently a senior in high school.

“Lori recently did some repair work, patching little holes that Evan’s pet rats had chewed over the years.”

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THERE SHE SAT, in the junipers along her driveway.

Eighty years old, Carol Grimes, bless her heart, had bent over to pick up her Press Democrat. She’d lost her balance and fallen into the bushes.

Like the lady on TV, Carol couldn’t get up. Not good.

“I heard the rumbling of an engine,” she said, “and a fire truck went by, followed by an ambulance with lights on.” The sounds of the two emergency vehicles trailed off.

A bit later, Carol heard again the distinct bellow of a fire engine’s engine. This time, the truck stopped at her driveway.

Three Rincon Valley firefighters hastened to her rescue. One bandaged her bleeding elbow and a second told her “he had spied me out of the corner of his eye, and figured I wasn’t weeding!”

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.