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PARKERSBURG – Tucked away on the second floor of the Wood County Senior Citizens Building on Market Street are three rooms designated only by a piece of paper on the wall, which reads “Senior Stitchers.”
Inside one of the rooms, you will not find a group of “little ole’ ladies,” quietly sewing with a cup of tea or coffee nearby. No, you follow the laughter and the sound of sewing machine motors. Laughs and smiles make the motors rev as senior ladies from the ages of 53-88 make things happen every Tuesday morning. The stitchin’ and laughin’ begins at 10 a.m. and usually wraps up around 1 p.m. They break for lunch but the spirited laughter continues.
“There’s always something here to do,” said Joyce Reinhart, the unofficial record keeper of all things stitched and spent by the Senior Stitchers. “There’s always someone in the cutting room trimming material so we can turn it into something,” she said. “Then we have one room which has shelves and shelves of material just waiting to become,” she paused, looked around the room, and then added, “something.”
Materials, all materials, including the sewing machines, threads, yarns, are donated. And for 15 years senior stitchers have been donating their time to sew the donated materials. “This started down at the Dils Center,” Reinhart said. “We’ve grown to about 20-25 people who come at one time or another. We’ve had a couple of guys down here – not any more though.”
Inside the stitching room there are 20 sewing machines in every space where one can be fitted except in the middle, where there is one table which is big enough to have a quilt placed.
While the majority of the sewing is done on machines, the quilt table gets several sets of hands working there at a time. That’s because the Stitchers donate a quilt to each Habitat for Humanity home according to Reinhart. “A new home needs a quilt,” she said. “A home is not a home without a quilt.”
What the Stitchers turn out depends on the size of the material according to Rinehart. “We try to not to have to throw anything away,” she said. “We makes bibs, neck pillows for dialysis patients, whatever needs to be made. The cutting room turns out materials by patterns and when we finish something we go get another. This room is open to anyone who wants to come and sew.”
Space is not wasted with the Stitchers. Neither is the determination to make whatever is needed to be made.
“We got cutting boards. We got ironing boards,” Rinehart said. “We got everything we need. And if we don’t have it, we go get it.”
Rinehart said local hospice are frequent visitors to the Stitchers. “There is a difference however, when people come up here. They’re only allowed one of a certain thing,” she said. “One. No more.”
Now then, should someone want to bring the material and have the Senior Stitchers do their stitchin’ best on it.. “We can do that,” Rinehart said. “But someone just can’t call us up and want something made of a color or design. We don’t that kind of custom work.”
The oldest there this particular Tuesday is 88-year-old LaGreta Russell of Belpre. She is a four-year veteran of Senior Stiching. “Being able to sew saves a person money,” she said. “I do it just for enjoyment now. I didn’t get to start until I got married then I got a machine and took classes.”
LaGreta is married to 91-year-old Donald, a World War II veteran and her husband of 69 years. “We got married Jan. 27, 1946,” she said. “He drops by here every once and a while and visits with everyone.”
LaGreta makes no excuses as to why she drops by weekly. “All I got at home are men,” she said. “A husband, a son and grandson. The son and grandson lost their home to a fire so they live with us.”
She stopped sewing on what was going to be a blanket for an alzheimer’s patient, looked up and smiled. “I need to have myself some girl talk every once in a while. Can’t get that with a house full of men.”
Geneva Caplinger of Lubeck has been with the Senior Stitchers for two years and has sewn for more than 60 years. “Like a lot of girls, I started sewing in junior high during home economics,” she said. “Not too long ago I was sewing at St. Francis Xavier but they needed the space there, so I came here.”
Caplinger gives the sewing machine another shot of electricity and the machine whirls in a few more stitches to the bib she is sewing. “I love to sew,” she said. “I have a good time but I have to use the machine instead of doing any hand sewing – I’ve had carpel tunnel in both hands.”
Still, it hasn’t stopped Caplinger from doing her favorite type of sewing – quilts. “I love to do anything with quilts,” she said. “I have five children, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
“I’ve made the kids and grandkids two quilts apiece,” she said. “I’ve made baby quilts for the great-grands but not full quilts – not yet but soon.”
Leona Sartor of Parkersburg sits at her machine. She has been able to sew for almost seventy years she said. She too started sewing in junior high school. She has taught her four children to sew, “and two of my four granddaughters know how. I’ve got three great-grandchildren who will learn how.”
Sartor, as does Caplinger, made quilts for her children and grandchildren, “but I haven’t gotten around to making them for the great-grandkids yet.”
Sartor said the ladies at Senior Stitchers make it easy to keep coming back. “I just love being with people,” she said. “When you’re home alone, all you have are the walls. Here, you have people.”
While Sartor uses a sewing machine with Senior Stitchers, she said she is hand quilting two items. “I think hand quilting is more personal,” she stated. “There’s a lot more love involved with a hand stitched item. A lot more time too. I have worked on it daily for three months.”
“We are here because we love to sew, and we use the ability to sew to help other people,” Reinhart said. “A couple hours helps people who may not be able to totally help themselves. We go at it every Tuesday.”