LA HABRA : Quilts She Sews Warm Many Lives

At 88, Mamie G. Barr still quilts. And quilts. And quilts.

Although she acknowledges her hands aren’t as nimble as they once were, Barr spends eight hours sewing between one and three quilts a day to put a smile on a child’s face, keep a homeless person warm while sleeping on the streets or brighten the day of an elderly invalid.

The La Habra resident donates the quilts she makes of hand-me-down scraps to churches, nursing homes and service organizations that turn them over to needy people.

“I get a lot of pleasure out of doing these things for people that need help,” said Barr, sitting at her 30-year-old Singer sewing machine. “The way I figure it, you give one of these quilts to a kid and you see his eyes sparkle. That is more than enough pay back.”

Barr began her quilt-giving life 26 years ago after she retired. She had worked as a nurse for 35 years in hospitals in West Virginia, where she was born, and California, where she has lived since 1963.

During the Great Depression and World War II, Barr worked as a seamstress for the Red Cross, making mattress ticks and clothes.

Barr credits her grandmother for teaching her to quilt. She can no longer make her quilts by hand with the fancy lone-star or maple-leaf stitches that her grandmother taught her because her hands stiffen during the time-consuming process.

But with her sewing machine, she said, she can sew simple 12-block or nine-block quilts three times as fast as she could by hand.

“My grandmother would turn over in her grave if she saw the stitching on my quilts, but it’s the only way I can work,” said Barr, who has mild arthritis. “And I’m going to work as long as my hands will let me.”

Those who benefit from her work appreciate it, said Dorothy J. Robertson. She picks up Barr’s quilts and delivers them to convalescent hospitals throughout Orange and Los Angeles counties and the Community Resources Care Center in La Habra, where emergency funding, food and clothing are provided for the needy.

The multicolored quilts “go over big,” said Robertson, who volunteers at the care center. “One boy from a poor family of seven children came to the center last week and said: ‘Oh, can I have one of these?’ ”

She said when she handed the youngster one of the quilts, he clutched it tightly against his chest and “the look on his face--it was so happy.”

Besides the quilts, Barr also makes dolls, potholders, dresses, aprons, Bible tote bags and other items that she also donates.

Much of the material for her projects is donated by friends and members of the Methodist Church of La Habra, where she worships.

“It’s fun to take the scraps that people throw away and make something useful out of it,” Barr said. “It makes me feel good to think that I’m doing something that’s worthwhile.”

Robertson said Barr’s quilts reach people who need something to make them smile.

The quilts “are so pretty and soft and they’re just special little things on the bed that not only keep you warm but cheery too,” Robertson said. “They provide a little piece of brightness in an otherwise kind of crummy world sometimes.”