June 16, 2008 issue
Quilting sisters received MCC aid long ago
By Gladys Terichow Mennonite Central CommitteePage:
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WINNIPEG, Man. — Many new parents and grandparents know the best place to buy handmade baby quilts is at the Winnipeg Mennonite Central Committee Festival and Relief Sale.
Anna Neufeld and Elsa Klassen, Winnipeg sisters, received MCC assistance as children in the Soviet Union and now make quilts that are sold at the Winnipeg MCC Festival and Relief Sale. — Photo by Allison Ralph/MCC
What they don’t know is that most of the baby quilts are quilted by two sisters who received assistance from MCC as children in the Soviet Union in the 1920s.
For more than 20 years, Anna Neufeld, 87, and her sister Elsa Klassen, 85, have made about 30 baby quilts a year for MCC.
“We quilt baby quilts because we have only enough space for a small quilting frame,” Neufeld said.
In addition to quilting in their home, the women join other quilters in the MCC material resources center in Winnipeg to make larger quilts for the annual sale, held June 13-14 this year.
The women enjoy the social elements of quilting and the satisfaction of knowing that the quilts bring happiness to the people receiving them. They also reflect on how money raised from the quilts helps people living under poverty and oppression.
“We were once recipients of MCC assistance, and now we can do something for MCC,” said Klassen.
The sisters remember their parents talking about the food assistance they received from MCC in the 1920s when they were living in the Soviet Union. They also remember the 1932-33 famine that claimed the lives of millions of people.
“We were poor as church mice,” Neufeld said. “I was the oldest of three children. We ate sugar beets and millet. That is what we ate once a day. We cooked it and could hardly wait for the next meal. In the evening we talked about food. We were hungry all the time.”
Their father died from pneumonia in 1933 — a death that the women believe could have been prevented if their father would have had more clothes, food and money for medicine.
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