The story of Bonnie Lewis's life can be told in her hands -- strong,sturdy,work-worn
hands that have cleaned other peoples's houses to keep her family together; gentle hands that have
stroked the feverish head of a sick child through many a long and frightening night; creative hands
that have allowed Bonnie to hang onto a hard-scrabble independence in a land where jobs for
women are scarce and low-paying.
For Bonnie Lewis is a quilter. She also is an artist and a dreamer.
"I started to quilt when I was 15, making quilts for the family," she said. "I found out I could
make money so I quilted for people. then I started selling quilts. One thing led to another, and I
kept selling quilts and making a little money."
Quilting also gave Bonnie a security net during her hardest times, especially in those dark
days when a 23-year-old uneducated widow,she faced a daily struggle to provide for her five
children.
"We lived in a coal camp, and then my dad bought this piece of land and we moved up
here," Bonnie recalled. "This was the first home place that my grand parents had ever owned all
their lives and they were old. And then my dad gave his parents a place and that was the only
home they ever owned. They had just moved around."
The land opened the door to an exciting new world which Bonnie explored with her two
younger sisters (a brother would come much later, after Bonnie was married and had children
of her own).
"We knew every hill and every rock and everything in this holler when we were young,"
she said of the land,which has been home to her ever since.
"And then I married when I was 15," Bonnie said. "I dropped out of school." Bonnie
does not talk much about the marriage, but when she does, the pain of the experience shows in
her face. "I didn't get along with my husband," she says simply. "He was a drinking man, and he
had a lot of problems." When he died after eight years of marriage, Bonnie's five children were
all under the age of seven.
She watched her mother to learn the tricks to survive the worst times. "She taught us to
survive. She had to learn the hard way and she taught us," Bonnie said. "And I learned from the
Depression. And I figured if they could do it, I can."
"We raised gardens and canned food. We didn't have much money, but I used to sew
for people,And I used to cut hair, and give permanents and house-clean, and just anything I could
do to make a little money after the kids went to school," she said.  But while Bonnie did what she
had to do to to survive, she thirsted for knowledge and the education she had given up at 15.
When her children went to school, Bonnie too,went back to school, first earning a GED
then a high school diploma. She didn't stop there. Bonnie started taking college courses, one at
a time as often as she could.She now has a degree in social work.but it wasn't easy. Bonnie, who
lives four miles from the main road and who doesn't drive or own a car,had to rely on friends.
Some times she had to walk or hitchhike to get to class.
All the time Bonnie continued to quilt--quilts with log cabins and tall trees and wild
animals, quilts that told stories, quilts to hang on walls and quilts to cover beds."I'd just sew and
quilt and sell quilts and use the money for the family.Quilting has been a Godsend to me. It has
kept me off welfare and it's something I like to do.
I went to work several times, I worked at Piggly Wiggly, and as a teacher's aid. I found
I was much better at home making quilts."
"It's easier for a woman my age, you see. My health is not that good any more, and I can
work when I feel like it and when I am sick I can lay down," Bonnie explained. "I try to do good
work so I can get repeat orders. If you do good work, you get repeat orders. And a minimum
wage just doesn't pay that much. If you don't have much money you can't afford a lot of clothes
or a car. You're better off working at home."
Continuing her education opened doors for Bonnie that gave a new dimension to her
work. It was in college class that she was introduced to the noted Appalachian author and poet
Jesse Stuart, whose work reflected the East Kentucky Bonnie knew so well.
Stuart's poetry became the inspiration for one of Bonnie's most ambitious projects, a
work of art she simple calls her" Jesse Stuart Quilt."
"Each verse that I read in my mind would become a picture of the mountains," she said.
"So I began to put these pictures into patchwork--the mountains, the trees, the cabins. I could
just see the pictures as i read the poetry. That became something real to me ,you know, that
I could just look out and see."
Today Bonnie's children are all grown. Her three sons are all coal miners and live near
by. One of her daughters is stationed with the U.S. Army in Germany and the other is married and
living in Connecticut.
But Bonnie's child-rearing days are not over. She is raising Joe, the eight year old child
of the daughter in Germany. Bonnie would like Joe , a bright and imaginative child, to finish school
and go to college. " I tell Joe, you don't have to go to school and he says mommy I want to go
to school."
Bonnie stopped to consider her life. Her hand came together , her face relaxed. "There are
million women around here who are just like me. Nobody has it easy, but most of them are really
attached to their children."
" This article came from " In Praise Of Mountain Women"
Written by Beth Spence with the Women's Task Force of The Catholic
Committee of Appalachia 1988
My name is Sue (Lewis) Tolar, the youngest of Bonnie's daughters. Things have changed
since this article was written. This is a brief up date.
All three boys still live near Bonnie and all but one works in the coal mine. The other has
his own auto repair shop. The daughter that was in the Army in living now in Kentucky and
attending college with her son Joe. I am living in Norfolk Virginia and trying hard to start a business
with quilts.
Bonnie Lewis never remarried and is living still in the house her grandfather built. She is
no longer able to make quilts due to complication of sugar diabetec. Although she longed for the
day her children would be secure in their futures and she could pursue her dreams, that day has
passed. But she still talks of Jesse Stuart, and the mountains of Kentucky, and her knowledge of
quilts is e mince.
For me it would be a loss to let her knowledge and story end here .

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