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Home Craft Club
of South Hill

By Helen Heil Rohlman

The Home Craft Club was formed by a group of ladies that lived in the Woodland School area, before and during World War II. From what I can remember, it was a get together, about once a month at different ladies’ homes. They looked forward to that as much as a man’s poker night out. Only a few women could drive cars, so the others either walked or hitched a ride to their meetings. The ladies were interested in new crafts and handiwork and often had projects to complete.

Crochet
This embroidery was done in the 1930s by the Home Craft Club on South Hill and donated to our society by Mr. W. Lynn Williams & Mr. Robert H. Williams. Mable Litton designed and made the work.

One project I remember was each member was asked to bring a large, patterned flour sack and create something out of it. The ideas were many: dishtowels, clothes pin bags or aprons, but the winner created a darling little boys shirt out of one flour sack!

A charitable purpose they had during World War II was making lap robes for servicemen in Madigan Hospital at Fort Lewis, Washington. Mom (Helena Heil) spent hours gathering used wool garments, taking the seams out, pulling the loose threads, washing the strips of wool material and then pressing them, and would then cut them in 5” squares. The final steps were to crochet the edges with bright-colored yarn and then sew the squares in an attractive pattern into a warm lap cover. The ladies were proud to help with the war effort in any way they could. Some of the Home Craft ladies entered their fancy work at the Puyallup Fair and were quite proud of their accomplishments.

Members I recall are: Ann Templin, Nellie Williams, Edna Davidson, Dora Callahan, Mrs Adrain, Virginia Tuttle, Maude Swalander, Erma Goodner and my Mom, Helena Heil.

There are probably more names on the stitchery that you could add.