My Giveaway Contributions

Sorry I didn't make it to quilting last night.  I'll bring my contributions to the giveaway next Tuesday.  (2 Fat Quarters, One 9" X 44" quarter yard, and a quilt book.)  The "Hobo Quilts" book is not only a pattern book for symbols/signs that the Hobo's used from the 1880s to the 1940s, it also contains photos and brief stories told by those who either rode the rails or had other experiences with them.  Very interesting bit of American history.   My mom and one of her brothers and his wife rode as "hobos" once trying to go see her dad.  They started out on Hwy 71 between Mena and Ft. Smith but couldn't catch a car ride and wound up catching a train.  I have a home-made book put together by my sister.  It is titled "Your Daddy and Me - The Early Years".   Mom's hobo story is included in this book.  Here's an piece of the story:  "Finally , about three in the afternoon, the train stopped again.  Max asked me if I had any money left and I told him I had a dollar, and he said for me and Irene to go find some water, and he took the dollar and went to get some bread and bologna.  We found a fruit jar in a garbage pail and grabbed it and ran on down the road 'til we saw a house with a well.  We drew up a bucket of water to wash out the jar and started to draw up another'n when a woman came out and yelled at us to get away from her well.  It scared us, but we got another bucket anyway and filled our jar and ran back to the freight train."   I think this took place around 1938.   Mom related all the stories to my sister - most of them during a bus trip to New England to see the fall foliage.