On February 7, Sharon and Marilyn attended the quilt auction at the 4^th Annual Rio Grande Valley Mennonite Relief Sale held at the Iglesia Menonita del Cordero in Brownsville Texas.  Our first sale!

Over 70 quilts/comforters were auctioned off for a total of $8717. (photos of quilts/people) The quilt auction raises a bulk of the sales intake.   Approximately 200 persons filled the gym of the Iglesia Menonita del Cordero.

Marilyn came away with a quilt of her own. (see photo on right)

Highlights:  a relief sale that offered traditional Mexican food and entertainment, hearing Spanish spoken by the milling crowd, and meeting and listening to the stories of quilters and buyer alike.  Relief Sale Quilts and the women who make it possible for MCC to auction several thousand quilts every year at 45 sales throughout Canada and the U.S. have  important quilt, community, and service histories that needs to be told.

We were delighted to meet Marilyn Short who comes with her husband from Archibold, Ohio to the Brownsville area for several months during the winter.  This year, Short made and donated the quilt that brought a total of $1925.00 to sale coffers.  It  was auctioned off during the first hour of the five-hour sale for $1100 and donated back by the buyer.  It went for $825 later in the sale.  In the early 90s,   Short  was active in teaching women to quilt and encouraging quilt production for relief sales in California. Short and many others at the sale are known as “Winter Texans.”   The “winter volunteers” work with the women of the Iglesia Menonita del Cordero on quilts for the sale.  Ten of the fourteen local quilts in the sale were identified as cooperative efforts of  the church women and “winter volunteers.”  (see photo on left)

Susanna Zook served as the chair of the quilt committee for the Rio Grand sale.  Zook, originally from Kalona, Iowa, went to Brownsville with MVS in the 1990s. and stayed on to settle in the community.

Sharon and Marilyn are also interested in reasons why people buy particular quilts.  We were especially touched by a woman who bought a quilt donated by the Yoder (Kansas) Mennonite Church because that was the home church of her late husband.  In addition to local quilts and those donated by other Texas quilters, were a variety of quilts and comforters donated by MCC centers in Newton, Kansas and Ephrata, Pennsylvania.  Quilts were also received  from Mennonites in Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, perhaps with ties to the Brownsville community. 

Sharon and Marilyn want to thank the sale photographers, Curtis Gaylord and Patrick Harris, their hard-working husbands.