Deborah Pettway Young

Lola Saulsberry, sister of quiltmaker Arcola Pettway, reminisces about their mother, Deborah Pettway Young (1916 - 1997), whose brother Reverend Spurlin Pettway was the father of quiltmaker Mary Elizabeth Kennedy.

"My mother, Deborah (she pronounce it 'D-bora'), she was a Pettway; she married a Copeland, then she married a young, Nettie Young's daddy. She was born in 1916 in Gee's Bend. She passed in 1997. Her parents were Paul Pettway and Louvenia Pettway. Her mother died, I think she said, when she was seven years old, so her daddy raised her. He remarried twice. She had a hard life coming up because of step-mammas. She had three daughters. Arcola was the oldest. She liked to go to church, and she sang in church. She made a lot of quilts, and she made dresses. And she did it without patterns. If she saw a dress somebody had on the TV, she could make it. The same was true of her quilting. I remember something she saw on TV, she made it into a quilt. I never dreamed that people would pay attention to her and Arcola's quilts. They were just making them to keep warm."