My grandmother Halice was big in the local Grange in Levant. Our family had a camp in Stetson and we would generally stop in to visit her on the way out to camp. I can remember going to suppers or fairs going on at the Grange. Everyone referred to my grandmother as “M’am” or “Mrs. Bemis”. Many of the people in town would have had her as a teacher and it was clear that she was held in high esteem in the town. When I was deciding what book to use for her quilt books on the Maine grange seemed an obvious choice. When the book I chose, “A Fair Field and No Favor, A Concise History of the Maine Grange” by Stanley Russell Howe, arrived and I found and Halice was in two of the photos of the book I knew I had chosen well.

I’ve found a great online resource for finding old books, AbeBooks.com. It’s a conglomeration of local booksellers across the country that you can search all at once. I’ve had good luck searching for odd topics on it.

The cutting for this quilt went easily – all squares and triangles.  I rather enjoy cutting the prints and book pages into the various shapes required for the quilts; so much geometry involved.

Cutting prints for Halice’s quilt

Here’s how it looks all laid out:

School Girl’s Puzzle Square laid out

And here is a great photo that my sister Diana shared with me over the Thanksgiving holiday. She got it from our uncle Royce. It shows four generations of Bemis women.

Clockwise from left Halice Bemis, daughter Rosalie, her mother Mabel, her Grandaughter Sherry

Now the dipping begins then the sewing!