Craft Keeps Her Life Meaningful

Beatrice Fox was always good at working with her hands. When her children were in high school, she sewed their clothing. When her children needed bookcases, she built them.

But eight years ago, the Valencia woman’s once sharp vision started to diminish and she was soon reduced to seeing only shapes and shades of light and dark.

Legally blind, Fox thought she had lost the use of her craft skills until two years ago, when she started to crochet for charity. Since then, her efforts have earned a commendation from the state Legislature and brought new meaning to her senior years.

“What good is our existence if we’re not helping somebody?” said Fox, 86, who has crocheted more than 70 afghans in the last two years for several charities.

“This is kind of therapy for her, where she is doing something that she feels can help other people,” said Jill Rubenstein, Fox’s daughter. “She has crocheted and knitted things her whole life, but as she lost her eyesight, she thought she couldn’t do this anymore and stopped for the last few years.”

It was Rubenstein who encouraged Fox to start crocheting afghans for the charitable efforts of the Sierra Canyon School in Chatsworth.

The school donates time and goods to Portraits of Hope--Project 9865, a charity for children throughout California with serious diseases.

Rubenstein, a Spanish teacher at Sierra Canyon, helped Fox select yarn colors, and Fox made the afghans by touch, with safety pins to mark corners and to change colors.

Shelley Deutsch, director of community service at the Chatsworth school, was awe-struck by the quality of the afghans she received.

“I was expecting a couple of little afghans,” Deutsch said. “These were absolutely magnificent.”

Bernie Massey, Portraits of Hope co-director, is also impressed by Fox’s creations.

“It’s as nice and as thoughtful a contribution on the human level that we’ve received on this project,” Massey said.

About 2 1/2-by-3-feet, each afghan is a unique combination of alternated light- and dark-colored yarn. Fox’s most recent afghans, which each take about one week to complete, sit stacked on her living-room couch.

Just a few feet away is the reclining easy chair where Fox crochets while listening to books on tape. Her current selection is Raymond Chandler’s “Lady in the Lake.”

“I have two things in my life, talking books and crocheting,” said Fox, a Brooklyn native.

At 50, after her two children had grown up, Fox decided to go back to school. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in sociology at Arizona State University and worked for four years as a social worker until she and her husband, Benjamin, retired to travel together. They moved to Valencia in 1996. He died later that year.

“When my husband was alive, I had to take care of him,” Fox said. “Now I have something else to do.”

Fox’s work prompted Massey last year to ask the state Legislature to give Fox a commendation for her efforts. In September, she received a certificate from Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa’s office.

“I was elated,” Fox said. “I feel I am at least making my living worthwhile or else there’s nothing for me to do.”

Fox continues to make afghans for charity but is in need of yarn donations to continue with this work that has given her a sense of purpose.

“It’s meaning to my life that I’m accomplishing something,” she said.