By Mary-Justine Lanyon
Quilts of Valor on the mountain began with somewhat of a disappointment.
Ginger Gabriel, who has headed up the local chapter for several years, told her story at the Oct. 21 meeting of the Women’s Club of Lake Arrowhead.
A woman named Sharon showed the local quilting group a red, white and blue quilt she was making for her niece to give to wounded soldiers at a hospital in Louisiana. “I hadn’t been a quilter,” Gabriel said, “but something about that quilt pulled at my heartstrings.”
It took her 50 hours and $200 worth of fabric to make a quilt of her own. She gave it to Sharon to take to her niece. “I never saw her again and thought, ‘I could have given that quilt to a veteran here on the mountain.” And that’s what started Quilts of Valor on the mountain.
Gabriel talked to the VFW and American Legion on the mountain about Quilts of Valor. “They had never heard of it,” she said. And they asked, “Why would you want to give someone a quilt?”
Maureen Mann looked forward to celebrating the service of Native Americans at the Nov. 11 Veterans Day ceremony.
What we do, Gabriel said, is “cover all combat service members with comforting and healing quilts. It took me six months of badgering to convince them veterans would want quilts.”
She made quilts for her son and her late husband, Stan, who was a Vietnam veteran. When her husband was presented with his quilt, a 97-year-old veteran stood up and started stroking it. “A Marine yelled, ‘Now you’ll have to make a quilt for him.
“We’ve been presenting Quilts of Valor on the mountain for 15 years,” Gabriel said, noting they have presented 180 quilts to local veterans. They wrap each veteran in a hug created by the quilt.
She recalled one of the most memorable. Cliff “Doc” Bennett called her to say there was a Navy officer who was dying. Did she have a quilt she could present to him? “We did,” Gabriel said. “The word went through Mountains Community Hospital that this Navy man would get a quilt. The room became packed. We lay the quilt on top of him and read his service information. He raised his hand in a salute.”
Gabriel met a young man working at Rim Forest Lumber. She asked if there were any veterans working there. He told her he was a vet. “He had tears in his eyes when we wrapped him in his quilt. He said no one had ever thanked him.”
Many of the quilts have been presented at the annual Veterans Day ceremony, held at Arrowhead Ridge. Maureen Mann from the VFW Auxiliary of Post 9624 told the WCLA that the annual ceremony would take place on Nov. 11 at 11:00 a.m. “How many of you have vets in your family?” she asked. When nearly all the hands went up, Mann said, “Now I understand why the community supports Veterans Day.”
This year they celebrated veterans from the tribe, Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation. “I look forward to celebrating the service of Native Americans,” Mann said. “They have served in the military way beyond their percentage of the population.”
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