PORT ANGELES — A huge quilt hanging in the children’s section at the Port Angeles Library has dozens of small handprints.
Many of those children who made the prints are now the parents of children using the library, and some are no longer in the area, said Laurie Reeve, who loaned the quilt to the library at 2210 S. Peabody St., for one year.
The quilt was made in 1988 by students in the alternative program at Franklin Elementary, which is now known as the Multi-Age Community program at Jefferson Elementary.
It was presented to Reeve, now 70, as a goodbye gift.
“I have treasured this quilt,” she said Monday.
Reeve was the secretary at the school from 1983 to 1988 and had worked closely with alternative program students.
Two weeks ago, the quilt was hung on a large wall space behind the checkout desk at the Port Angeles Library, part of the Art in the Library exhibit, and it will remain there until October 2016.
The reaction to it was greater than Reeve had expected.
“It created such a stir,” she said.
Many of the library employees are in their mid-30s and either knew or know many of those whose handprints appear on the quilt, Reeve said.
Return after travel
Reeve and her husband, David Reeve, had moved to Philadelphia after their children moved on to college from Port Angeles High School.
For two decades, the couple moved around the U.S. for his work with several major airlines.
While he worked at the airlines, she used his access to inexpensive international flights to work with several medical volunteer organizations in Africa.
They returned to Port Angeles in 2009 to retire permanently to the area and early this month agreed to loan the quilt to be displayed at the library.
“I don’t have any place in my home large enough to display it,” Reeve said.
Visits quilt
On Monday, she visited the quilt, which she said has spent much of the past few decades folded in a safe storage area.
“It just looks wonderful,” Reeve said.
She pointed out names she remembered, unique designs chosen by students to decorate their handprints and messages written alongside the handprints.
One girl left her phone number, a young boy noted that he loves to fish and others simply added their name and grade.
They also gave her a booklet in which each wrote a personal note, many thanking her for helping them when they were sick or injured.
“Back then, the secretary was also a school nurse. I put on a lot of Band-Aids,” Reeve said.
Today, those students range from 32 to 37 years old, and Reeve said she occasionally walks by people of that age on the street who give her an odd look, as if they think they should know her but aren’t certain.
“I ask, ‘Did you go to Franklin?’” she said.
Sometimes that is enough for them to remember “Mrs. Reeve.”
‘Favorite square’
One of the most poignant moments was triggered by the quilt.
Reeve said she was visiting her quilt in the library to see it on display and struck up a conversation with a woman there.
“Did you know her?” the woman asked, and pointed at a square made by a girl who had written that she had had a bone marrow transplant.
Reeve said she did know the girl, who was 6 at the time the quilt was made.
The woman told her she had been a friend of the woman and that the woman had died May 27.
“That’s my favorite square now,” Reeve said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
