84-Year-Old Has It All Sewn Up

Mamie G. Barr, 84, remembers when welfare didn’t exist.

“When someone needed help, we would all get together and help them,” said the La Habra woman who spent much of her life as a registered nurse.

Barr is still busy helping others these days. She sometimes spends up to 10 hours a day quilting and sewing various types of garments to give to needy folks.

For Christmas, she made and gave away 400 lap robes and small quilts.

“Sometimes, I get going and just don’t stop,” said Barr, who retired 20 years ago after working for 35 years in hospitals in West Virginia, where she was born.

After her retirement, “I had to get into something, so I started making things for the hospital,” Barr said, crediting her grandmother with teaching her to sew and quilt. “She was a wonderful quilter.”

From her early days on a farm, Barr said she has had “a good life doing for others. There was always children that needed clothes, so we would rip up old clothing and make them over. They don’t do things like that these days.”

Barr lives with her daughter, Helen Horning. “She’s not inclined to do things like this (sew and quilt). She has a college education and volunteers in a different way,” she explained.

Much of the material for the lap robes, quilts, clothes, napkin holders, clown dolls, Bible tote bags and other items she makes is donated by friends and members of the Methodist Church of La Habra, which she attends.

For Christmas, her speciality is Christmas tree skirts with lace trimming. The clothing she makes is given to the Community Center of La Habra, while other items are donated to hospitals, convalescent homes and church bazaars.

She said some of her quilts are sent to the needy in Mexico.

“I do things for other people because that was my upbringing in West Virginia,” she said. “It comes natural to me and it’s very gratifying.”

The 26-year La Habra resident has a clear memory about her early life, which includes recollections of the disastrous flu epidemic in 1918 “when I had to care for a lot of people who got terribly sick. Taking care of people appealed to me and that’s why I went into nursing.”

And she also remembers the Depression.

“Everyone was poor so everyone was the same,” she said. “I don’t regret living through those days. It was very educational.”

Barr, who will be 85 in July, said, “I’m still going strong” and credits an active life, plenty of rest and good food for her health.

“I think there is a lot of foolishness going on with the way people eat today,” she said. “People should eat good substantial meals and exercise.”

And she added: “That’s been right for me.”

Each year, the North Orange County Board of Realtors seems to involve more people in its food drive and that means more food is collected, says Placentia resident Beverly Lombardo, the group’s executive vice president.

“We are getting more children, Scouts and a host of other volunteers collecting,” she said. “It’s becoming quite a community event.”

This year, the group collected 42 tons of food in its CanTree drive and presented it to the Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Service distribution center.

She said accolades for the food drive should go to Pat Ritchie of Fullerton, who has promoted the food collection for years.

The board named her the CanTree Lady.

Acknowledgments--Placentia Police Officer Rick Miller, assigned to the department’s D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program and who works extensively with public schools and students, has been named the city’s Employee of the Year.