At age 54, Gale Overstreet of Clear Lake had never attempted to sew a quilt, even though her mother and sisters had always been avid quilters. She thought she lacked the ability to create such a thing. Her troubled life had included addictions that eventually lead to liver disease. Following a stay in the hospital, awaiting a liver transplant, Gale needed a project to pass the time. She called her mother, Jane Pinkney of Petaluma, and told her, “I want to make a quilt.”
Jane told her, “Sew four-inch squares of fabric together with quarter-inch seams.” Jane and two of her four other daughters, Binky Thorsson and Betty Ashton, contributed fabric. Gale worked on the quilt for the next year, and by December had completed it. Betty, who is a professional quilter, quilted it, and Jane sewed on the binding. Gale gave the quilt to her own daughter, Theresa, as a Christmas gift.
The following year, on December 14, 2008, Gale died. She had caught pneumonia, and with a bad liver, she couldn’t fight it.
“For the last 16 years, Gale had been doing great,” Jane recalled. “She’d gone into the hospital many times, but she always came out. It never occurred to me that this time she wouldn’t come home.”
But Gale had made a quilt, and now her daughter, her sisters, her mother, her father, and everyone who knew and loved her have a lovely, tangible keepsake of “the storm” that had blown through their lives.
