Dorothy Marie Wildermuth at Her Hobby — Making Quilts, c. 1988

Dorothy Marie Davis Wildermuth at her sewing machine in the Orlando house, around 1988 — the second-to-last image of her in the 1990 Heritage, placed just below the 1968 Itazuke family group as a small now counterpart to the then of the Japan years. The typed caption Robert Earl set beneath the print reads: “Dorothy Marie busy at her hobby making quilts, circa 1988.”

What it documents

Quilting and needlework were one of the recurring practices the 2010 memorial program named two decades later as among the things Dottie “enjoyed”: “flowers, singing, square-dancing, and quilting and creating many beautiful needlework projects for her children and grandchildren.” The hobby ran for years; this 1988 frame is the only documentary image of her at the work itself.

Robert Earl placed the frame at the end of his Heritage’s Davis section partly as a portrait of his wife in her late life, partly as a small acknowledgment that the “many long hours waiting for me to finish my poring over old court records” — the line he used in the document’s dedication to her — were not idle ones. The quilting was the parallel work she was doing while he was at the genealogy desk.

Source: The Wildermuth/Fleming Heritage by Robert Earl Wildermuth, 1990 — Davis section.