Quilts of Valor offer comfort  to heroic Pine Plains veterans
Pine Plains Korean War veteran Walden MacPherson received a Quilt of Valor from Lynne Clinch, who made the quilt herself while   isolating at home with her husband, Vietnam veteran and past VFW Post 5519 Cmdr. Bobby Clinch, during the coronavirus pandemic.
Photo by Ruth Keeler

Quilts of Valor offer comfort to heroic Pine Plains veterans

PINE PLAINS — No one likes being forgotten. All those brave men and women who served in the U.S. military who were honored this Veterans Day — which fell on the eleventh day of the eleventh month this year — as in all years past since 1954 when the holiday was officially declared, and for all those World War I veterans honored since Armistice Day was originally commemorated on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1919 until ‘54, are no exception. That’s why programs like Quilts of Valor, which has volunteers sew handmade, patriotic-themed quilts for local veterans, are so special.

“I felt honored, obviously,” said 91-year-old Korean War veteran Walden MacPherson, a lifelong Pine Plains resident whose family has lived in town for multiple generations, as has his wife’s, Shirley. He spoke fondly of the quilt that his friend and fellow veteran’s wife, Lynne Clinch, delivered to him on Saturday, Oct. 17, in a formal presentation with representatives from the town’s VFW Post 5519 and American Legion Post 426, along with another friend and fellow veteran’s wife, Ruth Keeler, acting as the official photographer. 

“They’re beautiful for one thing and I was very honored to receive it,” he said. “I was very surprised. I didn’t know anything about it in advance. I felt honored and don’t know why I was picked out… but I was very pleased with it.”

MacPherson was humble about being recognized for his service so many years ago, but acknowledged that “everybody likes to be honored, whether they deserve it or not — and I appreciate it very much.”

Keeler said it’s the least the community could do for those who served so valiantly and selflessly.

“Veterans are really such special people to have given so much to our country,” she said. 

“Anything that honors the veterans of the community I think is wonderful,” agreed MacPherson.

And that was exactly the point, according to Lynne, who said she wanted to do something productive during the shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic and thought doing something to support veterans would be especially meaningful. Her husband, Bobby, is a Vietnam War veteran and past post commander of the Pine Plains VFW. He also received a Quilt of Valor on Oct. 17. In fact, Lynne said, it was her husband who inspired the whole project.

The goal, she said, was to “make a patriotic style of quilt you can cover a veteran with for their warmth and comfort; all I can relate it to is wrapping their arms around somebody to offer comfort. That is what a quilt does — it offers comfort from the horrors seen during war.”

She said that Quilts of Valor, a national organization run entirely by volunteers with no money exchanged, is “relatively new.” It began in 2003 after a Blue Star mother whose son was deployed in Iraq had a dream of a soldier siting on the edge of a bed in despair. In the next frame of her dream, the mother wrapped a quilt around the soldier, and his demeanor changed. He was comforted. She then realized her calling was to make quilts for veterans; she put out the call for quilters to donate quilts to vets.

Lynne said she learned of the volunteer program on PBS, when watching a quilting show about three years ago. The idea sat in the back of her mind. In the meantime, quilting scraps — lots and lots of material — amassed in her home. Not unusual for a quilter, she said. 

When COVID struck, Lynne decided to pull out her scraps of material, buy lots of cotton batting to stuff the quilts with and get to work. She  made four 55-inch by 60-inch oversized lap quilts, all 100% cotton. They were all done block by block, and took many hours to complete. But Lynne said, “When you enjoy sewing, you don’t count hours. Nobody would understand that unless you’re a quilter.”

In addition to her husband and MacPherson, Lynne presented the Quilts of Valor to Pine Plains veterans Mort Jackson and Allan Blackmar. Each time there was a formal ceremony.

Then she notified the foundation, which to date has donated 250,000 Quilts of Valor to veterans and active service members in the U.S. There’s currently a waiting list, she said.

“I plan on doing more. It just really made me feel good,” she said. “Sometimes we do so little for the service veterans, but they should be recognized. The fact is they go and protect people that they don’t even know. To say ‘thank you’ is great, but this is better.”

MacPherson is extremely appreciative of the quilt and that he and his fellow veterans were recognized for their service. 

“The color of the quilt — it’s multi-colored — I look at it at a glance and it’s almost like an American flag; it’s very beautiful. A lot of work went into it and a lot of thought and I very much appreciate all the effort a lot of people put into this,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine living in any nicer town in the country. I’ve been all over the world and always come back here. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

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