Oral History Interview Susan Schwartz

Lou Tate Foundation

Susan Schwartz, May 2, 1984

Verbal History Tape Transcription

Interviewer- Teka Ward

Transcribed May 20, 2007

My name is Teka Ward and I am with Susan Schwartz at 3022 Vogue Ave, Louisville, Kentucky. Our topic is Lou Tate and the Little Loomhouse. Before we start on memories of Lou Tate, tell me a little about yourself.

Schwartz:Ok, my undergraduate degree from Washington University, I have a degree in Mathematics, I worked three years as a transportation partner for Mutual Agency Fund of Louisville, went back and got my graduate school, degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in urban finance with a specialty in transportation and transit management. Presently I am working for the New York City Transportation Authority as an associate management analysis and have for the past two years.

Ward: Either of those is very different from Louisville.

Schwartz:Oh they are. Right.

Laughter!!!

Schwartz: When I come back it takes have the time to get the same distance. People are much friendlier in Louisville. Quite an experience living in New York City. While living there I took a weaving course at the YWCA and course basically was teaching people to do basic things and I hadn’t woven in a few years so recalled I haven’t even had more to do the basic steps and different steps we worked on a 4 line plan and we were able to stretch because the way my boss worked on it is the Little Loomhouse plan it is where you had to press pounds at the top and you didn’t have the pedals at the bottom, so that was kind of an adjustment getting use to, the woman who taught me as a weaver, in her late 60’s 70’s and she had gone to study in Australia and has given workshops all over different places and I asked her if she knew Lou Tate and she said that she had never met her Lou Tate personally but a lot of her friends use to good to Lou Tate for the summer workshops that she had for 2 or 3 weeks to weave and then at the end of it class I gave her a couple of Little Loomhouse Book which she was very please about because she collects different things with weaving.

Ward: Do you remember the first time you went to the Loomhouse?

Schwartz: Yes, the first time I went to the Loomhouse was about 20 years ago, 11 years old and a friend of my family, Bee Bee Schwartz, had heard about the Loomhouse from the Greenfield’s on Edgemont, which was down the hill. So one day Bee Bee Schwartz and her daughter, Harriet and My Mother and I drove up to the Little Loomhouse and here is this Little Log Cabins in the middle of these Houses that at the time were worth about $50,000.00 and basically like a subdivision and it was quite a shock to see this area and we ended up bring two or three of the McCase Girls who were about our age and also Karen Weaver and for the next few years we basically went up weaving and

Ward: Interrupted and is inaudible.

Schwartz: basically and the two went on weaving. We would go up there and my mother would pay like 25 cents day for me to weave and for the peace you wove Lou Tate would charge you by the inch, and I don’t know if it was 10 cents or 15 cents it was really really low and I remember we basically, I worked on a two harness and I didn’t do any 4 harness until much later and basically do little doilies and little purses or I did place mats and then I remember there were always lots of children there, when I went up to the Loomhouse and there was like demonstrations and open houses and one time Lou Tate look a picture to show to a magazine to show how you steps of weaving and children weaving. I think I was in the picture where I at the warping frame and another friend was where you the weaving onto the loom and another showing the actual weaving. The Picture is supposedly still around. Like someone told me the other day that there was just one copy of the picture. That it was in the Sunday magazine. That there is one

Ward: Talking over and inaudible.

Schwartz: When I use to go up there Lou Tate had a dog and dog use to follow her every where that she went and I had a dog, named Alphi and Alphi use to go up there and like enter Kenwood Hill and she would launch and she would going to the Little Loomhouse and she just loved to follow Lou Tate’s dog around and Lou Tate liked my dog and later years Alphi died and we got another dog named Phypa a schnauzer, Phypa went crazy over Lou Tate and going to the place.

Ward: Talking over and inaudible

Schwartz: All dogs were loved and Lou Tate’s dog died of old age and often that Lou Tate liked was push with color she thought that this was the way she could a learn color much better than in school where maybe you had a red square and you put it on square she thought the children learned color faster through her weaving as she let them pick out the color they wanted to weave and it was child’s choice and she felt in the school situation they didn’t let them do their imagination and the other thing was having children teach other children to weave and she would encourage that and when I was in 6th grade, I remember she let me borrow one of her tables and looms and I took it to my classroom and showed to the kids in my class and show kids have to weave it was maybe 12 inches and at the State Fair she was really into it and she decided I should enter a piece into the State Fair and one thing that I entered was a place mat that I had woven a few place mats and my mother still have it and I think I got honorable mention and one I got first and second for I often did a little cocktail napkin which she was one of the pieces she was popular that she had people weave and I also had did one that is still hanging in our kitchen that really creative and I’m still amazed that I even did it at the age of 11 or 12 years old and pole through which you get to have the leaves in the loom and _____ Lou Tate would let me borrow her loom to bring it home and set up to do my weaving here and but for some reason she wouldn’t let me have a table, so my brother in my basement had a wooden table, he made so holes in the table and made strings that connected to the loom, and I have these strings around my feet and instead of weaving with the peddles, that are on the table. How this worked it was such a pain. How things turn out loose, but I immediately entered it into the Kentucky Fair and I think I got Honorable Mention that and the other two pieces, place mat and the cocktail napkin I got first or second and that was a Girl Scout exhibit. I was a girl scout at the time. She even back then had girl scouts coming and I got a Girl Scout pin and wanted a badge for the weaving. I ended up getting maybe I think I was a junior scout and girl scout giving the badge for the weaving and different things your suppose to do. When I was in eight grade I taught a Girl Scout troop however to do some weaving but it was on a make shift loom that was made out of cardboard. Basically we did a bookmark to show how you could weave and with a little metal thing you attached to your yarn Lou Tate had sold us and you weave on the loom.

Schwartz: When I use to go to the Loomhouse most of the weaving that we did was outside the middle house and I remember going in there and there would be piles and piles of paper and looms and weavings and we would come in and take our looms outside and we would do some weaving and end of the day we put our looms back and I remember Lou Tate always talk about the fact that when Eleanor Roosevelt visited her house. She would show use her picture and it was interesting and then in the winter we would do weaving up in the top house which is completely different now it use to be where you had 4 or 5 broken rooms up there and we would do some weaving. I do remember when Lou Tate would have us before we threaded the yarn we would have to wind it up in a little bob at the top of the heel and she also encouraged little demonstrations that would occur while she was there and one top was part of the City’s Arts program, Lou Tate had a demonstration and exhibit in Stewarts and I remember as a child going there and see people who are coming through the store and we would show them how to do some weaving and I think one time I also went out to Farmington for her.

I did some weaving there. As I became older, I didn’t go to the Loomhouse but I have thought about it a lot and every time we would go start some weaving and one time Lou Tate started showing me how to use a 4 harness loom and how to interrupt the patterns on a coverlet and figure out how to figure out which piece you should mount to figure out the pattern and the different things and she would talk about the drafts of the patterns and she would tell us what patterns she liked, some _____ said she got copy of it and sent it girlfriend in the late 1700’s or early 1800’s. One time I had gone there for a while and all of a sudden we get a telephone call from Lou Tate, I’m about 15 or 16 years old and some woman had a loom that she bought in the 1950’s and she wanted to sell it. Lou Tate wanted to know if I wanted to buy the table, bench the working frame and Loom for $48.00 and we went out there decided we were going buy this loom because, I always wanted a loom so my brother ended up cleaning up the loom and we got some new pieces for the loom with threads to go through to set up and loom and I started taking some more classes until I went to college but then after college I ended up coming back to the Loomhouse and doing more weaving on some coverlet patterns and remember one Christmas and Hanukah I ended up making little place mats that people wanted for lots of presents for family and friends and everybody excited that it was handmade present. I also remember one time in the summer there was an open house and there was a father/priest who came and he taught spinning and it was the first time I every spinned and it was hysterical because my threads would either break off or they would be too lumped together as I was spinning and there was another woman who was teaching where you tie the loom to the tree and I don’t know if it’s called back strap weaving and she would do it and another time when people would be out there and they would teach vegetable dye.

Ward: At one of the Open houses

Schwartz: One of the open houses, or some workshop that she having for the day.

Ward: Did you ever see, I heard there were sheep? And they would sheer the sheep.

Schwartz: No, I never saw any sheep; I remember people bring the wool and different classifications of the wool. I remember when I had my schnauzer; my brother use to like in the summer have my dog clipped and he would say I should save the fir from the dog. I don’t know if my mother every did, but Lou Tate use to tell her she should do that.

Laughter!!!!

Ward: Tell me more about her technique of teaching weaving.

Schwartz: Part of Lou Tate’s technique of weaving is specially when I was in the 4 harness more so that the 2 harness when I was a child, her emphasis a lot of it dealt with the history of the coverlet and she would show up and tell us a little history about what it was and where it came from and when it was done and maybe even what family the reason’s for the pattern and she would also try to teach us how to interrupt the particular coverlet and I get a lot from there she set up she interrupted herself and then set up the loom where you could make a doilies small piece instead of doing the gigantic maybe it would be just one piece maybe there were several patterns that were in the coverlet for bigger lengths that the coverlet had on it but she would interrupt it one little section, you know and set up the looms would also try to have us learn to figure out what the pattern was and which particular panels you could do, she would always talk about the history and where it had come from and like that and I think that was a big part of her emphasis that this was a part of history. Lou Tate had a history degree. One time when my mother and I were up there helping us clean the house that she lived in, we happened to find her diploma from 1929. She told us to throw it away but we didn’t throw it away we just put it back where we got it. Who knows what happened to it, I think it was a degree from the University of Michigan.

Ward: You knew she had this background of education: Schwartz: Oh right that she definitely did.

Ward: Did she ever talk to you about her fore ray on horse back into the woods anywhere and recover any of these drafts anywhere

Both talk at same time inaudible.

Schwartz: She never told me about where she gone she would say some things people having heard about her they would bring the coverlets to her, and have her interrupt the patterns and eventually she would take them back. I really heard stories about it, she talked more about her different coverlet where she would have her ebbs and ohs and her algebraic expressions and guess she really would tell me about that because my degree was in mathematics and she would want the mathematical stand point and this is what we are doing and we are relating it to weaving.

Ward: As she taught she enjoyed teaching young people

Schwartz: She definitely did. Children were one of the important themes to her. She had something about it she thinks be just enthralled with something. I remember when the homes were made a national land mark and all these dignitaries that people and they put the plaque on the house and Lou Tate in some ways was real shy, she didn’t want the appearance that it was a particular presentation of it, there was some children there and to her she smiled the most when she was with the children and when the children came over to her she would be more comfortable in that situation. Interesting she had such an effect on children and that was an important thing to her.

Ward: Did most children tend to respond to her?

Schwartz: I think most children did, I think there were some children that made problems but a lot of time she would say, you know the teachers don’t let them have the imagination and so up there she kind of let them do what they wanted when it came to the weaving they could pick up the colors they wanted, she would maybe we thought it was ugly but if that was what the kid wanted that was the important thing to her.

Ward: You said you did most of the weaving outside.

Schwartz: A lot of it was done outside; probably what I remember is mainly in the summers with the good weather. There were a few winter times when maybe little bite on the cold side and we would be in top house.

Ward: Right

Schwartz: We do weaving up there. I probably was there every Saturday and I would do the weaving up there and she would be up there all day.

Ward: The middle cabin where she housed the looms.

Schwartz: Right and when we weaved outside when I was younger I remember doing more outside that looms would be kept inside there and at the end of the day we would have to take the looms back in to Wisteria and we would get the yarn and stuff and she always had piles and she would boxes she would have sleeves of thread made up of the colors she didn’t have to worry about putting it on your self it was ready all you had to do as a child just go over there you pick whatever colors you wanted and what ever____ and you would pick it out for the different shuttles and then you would go out and weave. Usually you would have responsibility in what you wanted, and remember some lengths were one of her picks was the dingo color, reds blues, yellows and greens. A lot of kids tend to pick up red and I remember a lot of things she would teach along the way. Some would be very simple then as she thought you could do something a little more fancy, oh she also had such a technique of weaving you put your thread through then hit one, then change your feet, you would hit twice and then you would put it back through, hit one change your feet and hit twice. She was like really particular that you did the weaving that way. You couldn’t do it any other way.

Ward: Did she tell you why she wanted you to do it that way?

Schwartz: Partially to make the tightness and stuff but she was really staunch on that was the way you had to do it you know.

Ward: She herself ever work with the girl scouts

Schwartz: She had mentioned that she had worked some with the girl scouts and she had girl scouts coming up here often. Other I don’t remember.

Ward: Remember when Kentucky Weaver’s junior

Schwartz: I was a member of the Kentucky Weaver’s junior

Both talking at same time inaudible

Schwartz: I think membership was only a $1.00 at the time for children. She use to send things out in the mail know now telling what was going on and sometimes she would scribble things and sometimes you weren’t quit sure she would say house and then start telling you about different things of weaving and I guess at that time we didn’t always really appreciate knowledge that she had. She was always kind of a colorful person could she had her short hair and she would were pants and she would be dresses and sometimes dresses would be a little drab color but her dresses would have pockets would be woven pieces of different patterns on it and she would go around wearing booties and she would walk on the ground and rocks with her booties. It didn’t matter what the weather was. I really don’t remember her in shoes. I remember just the booties. She actually wanted we gave her something for Christmas she told my mother she needed some warm booties. So she bought some colorful booties for her to wear and stuff.

All the time where she went her big thing was weaving and there was one time in her later years that she was in the nursing home, we hadn’t been up there for a while we went to the Loomhouse and somebody told us she was in this nursing home, so we drove over there right a way and she was there and basically doing ok but she was teaching the senior citizens there how to weave and after she went back to her house she still continued to teach with the senior citizens and teaching them how to weave. She also use to read a lot because she was always taking books back to the library and one time I remember I was in maybe high school going to neighborhood library there and also helping her teach the people how to weave at the library. It was always everything had to do with weaving, that she did.

Ward: Did you ever go into bottom house also called The Little Loomhouse itself?

Both talking at same time inaudible.

Schwartz: It wasn’t until later years that I entered the things with a kitchen. And one winter my mother and I went there and stuffed envelopes and she didn’t really have heat there and I don’t know what kind of heat, she called a stove or what, to help her, we’d stuff all these envelopes and that was basically when we found her graduate school diploma and stuffed through the house and we would find all kinds of stuff and also I helped to put plastic on the windows then I guess she finally get some kind of heater for her apartment. She also had squirrels, she basically lived in her house she would just go and look under her bed and her house was piled with all kinds of stuff, it was unbelievable. One time I went out to garage and how we got in there it was amazing as there was so much stuff all over the place and I had to wrap material around her. That was when she wasn’t feeling as well, so I wrapped the ties around her and she had me fill oil and take to the top house pour into the stove which I never did thinking here I am in the middle of Louisville and putting oil into this house and I’m putting plastic on the windows and also remember an outside john. I never used it myself; I usually did not have to go to the bathroom. When I would have to go up there and put toilet paper for when the kids came. She would also make Kool aid a lot of the times for kids to drink or butter juice don’t remember for sure what she called it. There would also be cookies and stuff there.

We never knew her financial situation sometimes she say something about the money and later on she would say she wanted to leave the Loomhouse to the people and she give more money and I thought one of the amazing things was we barely paid anything. There were all these kids there and probably real cheap for the parents to take them up there and drop them off for the after and she was always talking about going to the bank and I personally as a child or what ever quite really understood what was going on. I knew her payments were going into the cabins or what ever. I remember one point when I was older I was out of college and I working in Louisville for awhile and she needed more money and I wrote over 20 letters to Governor’s wife, to different historical groups in Louisville, to David Banks, to President of UofL, To the US. President and mentioned Eleanor Roosevelt had visited there, how this woman is a historian and I did get some answers back some like that and shortly later the place was made into historical home, now whether my letter had every had any effect I don’t know, but Lou Tate was really pleased that I was sending out letters to these people. I didn’t have a typewriter so I was hand writing them, to all these different people.

Ward: Did you ever meet anyone from her family?

Schwartz: No not that I remembered did I ever meet any one in her family. I use to hear things about her family. I don’t really remember things about her family.

Ward: When you first started going there was she living there all the time?

Schwartz: When I was 11, she was living there all the time with her dog. She and her dog were living there yah. We were just amazed at this place she had.

Schwartz: When I was in college I was amazed I never thought she would have people drop in out of the blue, a woman in her 20’s came up one day and she was talking to Lou and she was more into the modern weaving, she was kind of interested in the place and stuff but kind of feel a clash because Lou Tate was really into the history of coverlets and weaving coverlets and the traditional weaving because she felt we needed to learn to carry this on and she wasn’t interested in this woman who know up there into the modern weaving.

Ward: Do you think the woman realized that?

Schwartz: I really don’t know how the woman felt how do you be up there for a long time going on I could tell and so I couldn’t tell, I could see negative and stubborn streak something in her speech coming out.

Ward: In terms of the Little Loom do you think she credited herself with that happening?

Schwartz: Oh I think she definitely did, we use to talk about how the little loom got we wove on she designed or had a big effect on, she felt she had a big effect on weaving in the state of Kentucky and people knew her internationally and you know.

Ward: Did you recall her going out of the State to conventions or __________

Both talking inaudible

Schwartz: I remember hearing more from her about going places and about workshops than remembering her. I always remembered her there, but I heard she had done such and such or gone such and such place, kind of remember her as a fixture.

Ward: I’m sure that’s true.

Ward: I also wanted to ask you what do you remember most clearly about Lou Tate.

Schwartz: Probably the cabins and woods and that she seemed like she fit in there. Think the fact that she was so into weaving and into weaving and weaving was her life she wanted to teach children, she wanted to teach children to teach children to weave and that colors were important and that anybody in there own way could be creative. That you didn’t need to be an artist that in someway you could have your creativity and use your own imagination in weaving.

Ward: When she was in the nursing home did she seem caring on her weaving as you said?

Schwartz: She was teaching some of the senior citizens at the nursing home to do some weaving. Kind of like what she always did.

Ward: Did she have a loom with her?

Schwartz: I think there was one, we just saw her room but she was talking with us about how she was doing it, we didn’t really see her doing it. I know that later on she went back there to do some weaving.

Ward: Although she wasn’t sick

Schwartz: She wasn’t sick where she needs to be in the nursing home, because later I think she was sick you could tell, you noticed she was slowing down, as she got older.

Ward: Who would take care of the little Loomhouse when she was gone?

Schwartz: I don’t know I think it really wasn’t open and I’m not sure and the day we went there maybe there had been somebody there, yah that was how we found out or maybe a neighbor we found out but basically it was not open at that time when she was sick.

Ward: What kind of a kitchen did she have?

Schwartz: Kitchen, she had that little refrigerator that we bought at a garage sale, and little sink and it was crowded and boxes and boxes of flax and linen in her kitchen kind a like the looms had taken over the house. I never made it the upstairs part of the house, I only saw her bedroom-living room and her bed that was by the window where the squirrels use to visit and I saw the kitchen the back and I never saw anything else in the house. The garage I saw when I was doing the pipes. There was never a part of that cabin you didn’t know weaving was a part of it.

Ward: Wisteria was more storage and she said

Schwartz: yah Wisteria was like all over the place, she knew where some things were we might not know where they were but think she had an idea she knew what ever loom was suppose to be done and she knew what ever piece that she did and she also a certain _____ and _________ came to work with the loom she would save magazines so newspaper and that was what things were washed with but think last two when you were finish the warp up I think they had cartoon something distinguishing about that you had to have that to know coming to the end. Also at the end when you left and you had to put your name on it, you had to put a piece of paper and a safety pin would she did was to put it underneath that way when the next person weaves your name wouldn’t get lost, if you put it on the top, she said something could weave if off and you wouldn’t know which piece was yours.

Just organization she wanted people to help her she went to women’s group and churches to help her. We want to do something know and help maybe there would be a meeting but then we felt we never would hear anything about it for awhile. It wasn’t until after she died that we know the organization was formed. My mother started creating _____ years ago only paid with ______ do a lot more. Reason I wrote the letters at the time in made historical home.

Ward: Did you go to the ceremony?

Schwartz: I served cookies and stuff there were all these dignitaries there, Kathy Sloan was there, Governor _______ was there, David Banks was there, people showing people how to weave, Lou Tate was there, Lou Tate was dressed normally, most people would get really dressed up. She had her dress on with ________ pictures of it. She had the woven pockets on her dress and mention she was shy about the process she didn’t have trouble with it being made into a historical place she didn’t want to be out in front but then there were some children there and she like being with the children, that was where she was the happiest being with those children. Historical place and be permanent.

Ward: That was shortly before she died

Schwartz: Right, Right and then we went back up there a few times and didn’t hear anything for a while then I called up see my job or whatever then all of sudden my mother heard that she had died. And then we heard something in the paper and I don’t know if she contacting somebody that we knew said that we wanted to do something to make that place a lasting place.

Ward: What do you remember most clearly about Lou Tate as you look back your weaving experiences and

Schwartz: Lou Tate took a liking to you, which certain people she took a liking too, people that she decided she really liked, she liked children but when she liked, took a liking to us and called us after a few years and told us there was a loom for $48.00 or whole equipment with _______, and the fact that she kind of like enthralled that we came East End all the way out to Kenwood Hill that drive a distance to go there. I can remember that, also being she mentioned we were representatives of the Jewish Communities that we would come to the Little Loomhouse House, I don’t know she was just a kind of interest woman, just like knowing the satisfaction that when I was out there weaving I could make something, give as presents or to different things, people that I knew and she would teach me how to warp which I do not like to do myself, but everything she had she had a certain technique for benefit but when it came to the actual weaving that was up to you to do what you wanted to but when it came warping and beating the thread she had a certain technique and that important that you did it her way after that your creativity, you could do what you wanted to do.

Historical places I have traveled a lot, to Europe in my travels to Russia and pieces, clothing it just find it interesting and I think back to Lou Tate who I knew and different places that I go and ask people do you know Lou Tate and sometimes she know, older people will definitely know younger people not always. I think that is kind of interesting.

If there is a coverlet I try to find the pattern and ask where it is located, I try to find its origin and I think back to when Lou Tate would say this is the pattern and this is the issue and this is where a man got it from an 1812 Lord something. In audible.

You think of Lou Tate you don’t think just of the Loomhouse, you still feel like she is around. I remember as a child going there and she had cobwebs and she always little tree branch and put the spider web on it she would always talk about to little kids the nature being stayed. She was into people doing vegetable dye and actual craving and remember people doing weaving ________________________, put wild plants into them she would ______part of it, that was another part that nature was involved.

Ward: You used real sticks

Schwartz: Real sticks were maybe things from wild plants, putting them in there and stuff.

Ward: In the weaving

Schwartz: In the weaving piece that we did, I remember when I was doing a doily she also had a certain technique that you put a cardboard about a inch wide put it in the next piece between the two cardboards and also showed me how to trim them so the cardboard wouldn’t come out because lace being there. So always an interesting place to go, like something new you would learn each time you went there.

My mother would take him up there. My brother was usually fixing things. Asked him to do minor repairs. He is very handy at that so years ago my nephew made when he was 2 or 3 went up there and we tried to get him to weave but of course the kid was too young. But later Michael said he wanted to go to the Loomhouse so my brother and sister in law and Mother went up there, guess there is some kind of spirit around there for children. Children with nature’s natural setting and all these little colorful weaving and she______ really.

Call I still do some weaving on and off and one summer I decided I was going to have a ____ with a window seat getting into a high rise ___________, so she helped me warp my loom and I made a pillow for my window seat and I been so long with one design and other side I had another design and friend of my mother’s sewed helped her put the pillow in.

Another time I made a vest and Lou Tate helped me set up the loom for the vest, I created it in different shades of green and I made these two long strips like sewed them to the edge and around the arms and seams of the back and one thing she should have told me that instead of two long pieces I should have had 4 pieces because it ended up my stretching so long it would have been better fitted.

Talking about people making clothes during weaving or she favorite that she had woven to the type of clothes she had.

Ward: It appears to me that Ann Phifer’s mother is pictures in a wedding dress, which she herself wove.

Schwartz: Yah, I’ve seen it but I never done it. Lou Tate there were so many things that she wanted to do that she never was able to get every thing she wanted to do because I remember when my brother got married she told my mother she wanted to make the little linen towels for them put their initials in it but I think that was when she became ill, and also she had so much to do that probably would have been 5 years down the road she finally would done it. She would have done it but so much she was always doing and so many projects but a lot of time she would help us but she would do her own weaving she would working away too. Her dog would be setting at her feet as she was weaving.

Ward: Where did she keep her coverlets?

Ward: Downstairs in the bottom house

Schwartz: It might like all over the place. Some of them were downstairs some of them were upstairs, some in the middle and some were not hers they were on loan but seems like they were everywhere. Some were in beautiful condition and some in really bad condition, but she still could figure out the pattern was. Guess one of the things I remember most about Lou Tate is just unique that she different and so unusual and all, she was really into this it was basically her life, weaving and teaching children and wanting to carry on this craft so the craft didn’t die.