It is funny how stories get passed on and what they inspire. In 1968 Francine Snow recorded her childhood memories of her father’s closest farm neighbor, Stephen Meekins, known for his thrift. She related how Louis Cranson told the story that after treading hay all day, Mr. Meekins gave him a penny with the admonition, “Save the pennies; it only takes a hundred to make a dollar.” A hardworking man, Stephen Meekins followed his own advice.
Almost thirty years later, in 1997, when the Meekins was going to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its dedication, Librarian Rochelle Wildfong was on a hunt for historic information. She wanted to find something unique to give people some sense of the eccentrically generous donor and namesake of the Meekins Library, especially since many people did not know much about him or his life.
Remembering Louis Cranson’s story as told by Mrs. Snow, Rochelle was inspired. She wanted to create a piece of art to commemorate this story of a person working all day in the hay fields for a penny pincher. She chose to create a special cloth bag that could be a repository for one hundred pennies.
Rochelle was hand piecing crazy quilts at the time. Unlike traditional practical quilts, a crazy quilt was made with scraps of fabrics like silks and velvets, embellished with embroidery floss. A crazy quilt does not follow a clear pattern but was pieced together with many scraps of different shapes. Introduced in the late 1800s, crazy quilts became works of art—a way for the quilters to express their creativity—and remain popular today.
Reaching back one hundred years and looking forward, Rochelle thought that using a crazy quilting motif for the bag would be perfect. And it was. Rochelle’s multicolored embroidered bag with 100 shiny pennies tucked inside pays tribute to the crazy quilt tradition and evokes the spirit of the labor that earned one penny at a time. The Hundred Penny Bag is part of the library’s archival collection, kept safe in the Meekins, now in its 125th year. Daria D’Arienzo, Meekins Archivist. #throwbackthursday; #tbt
Posted to Facebook 10/7/2021
