World War II Woman

Knitting for the British War Relief

When I stopped by a friend’s house last week, she had material spread all over the living room floor. Amy was making preparations for designing a quilt. She was quite willing to stop her work to answer my questions about her memory of World War II.

She is about ten years younger than I so I wasn’t sure what she would remember, but immediately she said her most vivid memory was of her grandmother knitting constantly for the British War Relief. Asked why the British, Amy said that her grandfather’s two sisters lived in England and another sister lived in Ireland.

The sister in Ireland, along with her daughter, managed the family farm after her husband went into the service. One of the sisters in England was headmistress for the Lower School of the Cheltenham Ladies College. She did not think that Amy was receiving a proper education here in the United States. As a matter of fact, she frequently returned Amy’s letters with grammatical corrections noted. Hardly a way to encourage letters from a young relative.

I noticed an old small table in the room. Amy told me it was known as a Treaty Table. (As a Northerner, I later made the mistake of calling it a Surrender Table. No, no, no.) Tables like this were common in the South where Amy’s family lived in Charlotte County adjacent to Appomattox County. Pictures of General Lee surrendering to General Grant at Appomattox Court House show a table of this design.

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