Quilter ‘sews’ appreciation to area veterans
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KENMARE -- Ilene Hoff of Kenmare has turned a favorite hobby into a way to show her appreciation for area military veterans.
A long-time seamstress who enjoys quilting, Hoff, 94, has sewn eight quilts so far, which were distributed to veterans through the Donnybrook American Legion.
The daughter of a World War I veteran, Hoff grew up on a farm near Columbus. She and her husband, Norman, a World War II veteran who died in 2010, farmed and raised eight children in the Columbus community. Hoff also worked as a cook for Columbus and Lignite schools for 18 years.
Norman Hoff had served in the Army during World War II.
"He served in the occupation of Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they dropped that bomb. He walked the grounds among that," Hoff said. "After my husband died, I thought, 'These veterans - they served the country and didn't get much."
Having moved to Kenmare a couple of years before her husband's death, she had become active with the quilting group at Nazareth Lutheran Church. Hoff noticed that certain donated fabrics weren't useful for quilts for international missions because of U.S. patriotic designs. She began collecting that unusable fabric to cut into squares for quilt tops, buying the backing fabric to then create quilts to donate to veterans.
"I made one veteran's quilt for a homeless man in Minot," she said. "I made one for a man that was 103 - here in Kenmare.
"The funny part is I never made my husband one. I didn't think of it. But sewing is music to me," she said. "I like to do it. That's my past-time."
Hoff is largely a self-taught seamstress, taking up sewing to make clothes for her children.
"My grandma was a seamstress in Norway, and then my mother sewed a lot. She made a lot of clothes," Hoff said.
She has an older Kenmore sewing machine that she uses to make the veteran quilts and also to sew quilt tops for her quilting circle. The quilting group of a handful of industrious seamstresses assembles the quilts at their weekly gatherings, not only for international missions but for local distribution. Their quilts have gone to Kenmare High School graduates, homeless individuals through programs in Minot, the Domestic Violence Crisis Center in Minot and Gift of Love in Kenmare. Some fabric scraps go toward making dog beds for an animal shelter in Minot.
Hoff plans to continue sewing quilts for veterans for as long as she is able. She's counting on her quilting friends to pick up where she leaves off someday.
"I told the ladies when I'm gone they have to carry it on," she said. "Veterans deserve it."