A maker, through and through
Trudy grew up in Illinois before settling in the Hancock area of Wisconsin, where she worked for years with Waushara County Human Services' Child Support office until her retirement in 2011. But ask anyone close to her, and they'll tell you her real hours were spent elsewhere — outdoors among her flowers, watching the wildlife around the house, lost in a book, or, more often than not, at the sewing machine.
She was a devoted member of the Prairie Pointers Quilters Guild, where she found a community of fellow makers who traded fabric, patterns, and friendship for years. The quilts in this gallery, in stars, baskets, pineapples, and little patchwork houses, are a small part of what she pieced together over a lifetime at the machine.
"Trudy loved the outdoors, tending to her flowers, watching the wildlife around their home, spending hours quilting and reading books."
Before quilting filled her days, horses did. In her younger years she competed in 50-mile endurance races, earning Rookie of the Year in her very first season — the same patience and grit that quilting asks of a person, just on horseback instead of at a frame.
She is remembered by her husband Wayne; her children John, Brian, and Lisa; nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; her siblings; stepdaughters Erin and Stacey; and the many nieces, nephews, friends, and guild sisters whose names are stitched, quite literally, into one of the quilts below.