Aunt Joan's Quilts

In the small town of Houston, Missouri, Joan Womack’s name is synonymous with quilts. A self-taught artist, she has spent the last forty years creating beautiful designs for her family and others. Some have featured elaborate machine quilting, but Joan is most proud of the simpler hand-quilted projects she has completed.

Her hand quilting is what most others recall, too. Perhaps because it takes so much time and skill and younger members of society today are seeking more instant gratification. Piecing a quilt top requires precise sewing skills and can take many weeks. Quilting it by hand can then take months if it’s a large quilt. Those that devote their time to such a pursuit are becoming rarer.

Joan in 2013 with a quilt she made to raffle at our family reunion.

The sixth of eight children born to Ernest and Julia Powell, Joan grew up on a farm in Hartshorn, not far from Houston where she now lives, in the Ozarks region of Missouri. In the log cabin her father Ernest built for his family, there was no electricity or running water, so everyday work was hard work. Bringing water from the pump outside the back door, stoking the fire in the stove for heat and cooking, washing and hanging laundry, caring for the cows and chickens, snapping beans and shucking corn…it seemed there was always work to be done. In the Powell home, however, there was also room for creativity. Julia could often be seen working her hand shuttle as she created beautiful, intricate lace. Joan thought her mother’s tatting was almost magical. She remembers, “The shuttle moved so fast back and forth that we were never able to figure out how it worked.” Julia could also sew, likely out of necessity to clothe her large family, and she passed the skill to her daughters. In addition to sewing, some of the girls learned to crochet and embroider. Joan mastered all three.

In 1944, Joan Powell and Ermel Womack united in marriage. They raised three sons and operated many different businesses in the Houston area. Those years were busy ones for Joan, so her handwork took a backseat to work and raising her boys. She still enjoyed crafting, but it was something she rarely found time for. In July of 1974, when the boys were all grown, Joan and Ermel opened Joan’s Fabrics. Sewing was something Joan had always done and quilting was not entirely new to her. Joan once remarked, “My mother was not a quilter, though she did piece a Lonestar top. She never finished it.” Joan acquired a commercial sewing machine and learned to machine quilt. She began finishing quilts for customers in addition to the ones she created for herself and her family. After selling the store, Joan continued to work part-time in a fabric shop. One day, the owner of the shop brought in quilting hoops to sell. Intrigued, Joan purchased one and took it home.


In the Ozarks of Southern Missouri, as in other rural areas of the country, quilting was traditionally done by the wives and daughters of the early settlers. Nothing went to waste. The women of a family would piece a top out of old clothing and then get together with friends to finish it by quilting. All the work was done by hand. It was a practical craft; the families needed blankets. But the women, like Joan’s mother Julia, also felt the need to create something beautiful to balance the hard, hard work of everyday life. As decades passed, fewer and fewer women possessed the skills to finish a quilt by hand. With sewing machines readily available, what once took weeks could be completed in practically no time at all. Joan knew this to be true. She couldn’t count the number of quilts she had finished by machine.

It wasn’t until Ermel passed away in 2000 that Joan took up that hoop and taught herself to quilt by hand. She had five quilt tops put away. They were pieced, ready to quilt, so she pulled one out of the closet and tucked it into the long-forgotten hoop. Quilting came easily to her and became a way to work through the grief of losing her beloved Ermel; a way to pass the hours of the long days alone. It wasn’t long before others began to notice the work she was doing.

Many family members have received a quilt crafted by Joan. In recent years she donated one to be auctioned as a fundraiser for a family member battling cancer, gifted one to a great-niece as a thank you for organizing a family reunion, and donated one as a raffle item to raise money for future family reunions. There are so many others, too, that have been lucky enough to be given one of Joan’s quilts. They are carefully used or proudly displayed in the home of each recipient. The quilts are so treasured that some family members refuse to use them at all, hoping the quilts will last forever.

A quilt made in 2010 that Joan gifted to me.

One of Joan’s favorite projects was a quilt she completed for the anniversary of her son Keith’s Highway Patrol unit. With his help, she collected a bunch of old uniforms, both the shirts and pants and disassembled them to cut pieces for the blocks. The pants, with the stripe down the leg, made for some interesting design elements in the quilt she pieced from the fabric. For the center panel, she had a photograph of the whole patrol squad transferred to fabric. The transfer of photographs to fabric is more commonplace now, but years ago it was cutting edge and Joan was right there to try it. The finished quilt was proudly hung in the patrol office for many years. She doesn’t know where it is today, but the memory of creating that quilt remains one of her most cherished. She still has a photograph of the finished quilt that she’s happy to show anyone interested.

At 87, soon to be 88, Joan has put away her quilting hoop and stowed her needles. Her hands aren’t as steady as they once were, and her vision is beginning to fail. Though she has slowed down, she isn’t done creating. Today she enjoys crocheting, though laments never learning to knit, “Ermel’s mother could knit, and I kick myself for never asking her to teach me. I know she would have been happy to do it.” Joan has done enough, though. She has given advice and passed on her skills to anyone who has asked. It is women like her that help to keep the traditions of our ancestors alive.