The Connection

History is kept alive in many ways—through historical novels, ballads, folklore passed down through the generations. For one group of Arlington seniors, local history of the now closed Lee Center is being kept alive through the display of a quilt they pieced together in 2000. Many seniors spent numerous hours at the Lee Center, made friends, experienced life transitions and focused social activities around their time there.

Pamela Stratton, who spent many years participating in the activities at the Senior Lee Center, said when they closed the Center in December 2020, people scattered and it disrupted the lives and long held patterns of those who called Senior Lee Center a second home.

And  nobody knew what to do with the quilt that had been displayed at the Center for 19 years. Myrna Manoulis who worked at the Senior Lee Center part time for 19 years and was involved with the activities there said,” I know everyone who participated in producing the quilt. I felt like a proud mother. I couldn’t throw it away.”

So she gave to Stratton. “She gets things done so I knew she would find something.” Stratton didn’t have a square on the quilt herself but feels strongly about preservation of this piece of Arlington history. “I have been quilting for 30 years so when I got a call about a home for the quilt, I said give it to me and I’ll figure it out.”

The quilt was originally the project of a student from George Washington University in 2000 who was earning university credits for a course. Stratton remembers Elizabeth L. Maurer bought a huge piece of muslin for the project and cut it into 20 12-inch squares. Manoulis handed out the squares to the various clubs who met at the Center and gave them carte blanche on their vision.

Manoulis says, “Some were a little more artsy. The clubs could do what they wanted. Some would paint and others would glue material on their square. She remembers the Poker Club had cards on it with hearts and clubs, the Walkers had a nature scene and the Ancestry Club had a tree. “You can find such cute material at JoAnn’s.” Her square was a scene of the office. “I got material with lots of people on it, like cartoon characters.  I had the director, the custodian, the volunteers. I created a scene and glued it on the muslin.”

Every week Manoulis would give the completed squares to Maurer who assembled the final quilt with five squares across and four down with ribbon running between each one. Maurer affixed them all to a large muslin backing.  

There were months of work, imagination and memories wrapped up in the final quilt. Once Stratton got the quilt, the question was what to do with it in order to share the history of Lee Center.  So she wrote to Arlington County in April requesting a space to hang the quilt, and about six weeks later she got a response. “I had spent several months early in the year tracking down the 120 people who had signed the quilt on the squares with their club.  I did a lot of work to transcribe the names. Some of the signatures were difficult to read, and most of the people are gone by now.”

Now for the month of July the quilt is being displayed in the Magnolia Room at the Lubber Run Community Center. Stratton says, “We were hoping it could be displayed at Langston-Brown where many of us moved when Lee Center closed but they say they don’t have any wall space for it.”

Stratton says, “That’s what it’s all about, sharing the memories.”