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Viola Johnson, 94, says sewing quilt tops is as pleasurable to her as eating a candy bar. The Colony Court resident has sewn together hundreds of quilt tops. The Quilting Club of St. John Lutheran Church in Waseca then finishes the quilts and donates them to charity.                                      Pioneer photo by Deb Bently

Local senior has Heartwarming hobby

Viola Johnson, 93, says making quilt tops is as enjoyable for her as eating chocolate.
“I just love it,” she comments. “They’re so pretty when they’re done.”
Johnson, a lifelong area resident, is no stranger to quilting.
Born in 1930 near Mapleton, she was one of eight children in a time when pieced quilts were a practical, economic way to keep a family warm in winter.
She remembers being raised on a family farm in a time when having “summers off” from school was necessary so that all the needed work could be completed. A particular memory for her is helping with her family’s hemp crop. According to an April 2024 article in the Star Tribune, southern Minnesota farmers were encouraged by the federal government in the early 1940s to grow hemp for fiber to make ropes, uniforms, and even parachutes for World War II. Processing plants, known as “hemp mills” were built in 11 regional towns including Blooming Prairie, Montgomery, Mapleton, New Richland and Wells, according to a 1943 Minneapolis Tribune article. Minnesota farmers signed contracts to grow as much as 40,000 acres of hemp during that time.
Johnson remembers she and her siblings were expected to strip the leaves off the tall stems so they could be stacked and taken for processing.
During the school year, she and her brothers and sisters attended a one-room schoolhouse which “graduated” students when they finished the eighth grade.
She met Milton Johnson of Otisco through some friends; the two married in 1951 after they had been dating for three or four years.
“I was never able to have any children,” Viola says. She and Milton remained a couple until his death in 1989.
She and Milton attended St. Peter Lutheran Church in Otisco. Viola remembers a year when the church had 17 confirmands and she consented to make 17 quilts.  Coincidentally, decades later, she decided to make quilts for each of her 17 nieces and nephews who, by then, were adults and even parents of adults.
Both she and Milton had jobs outside the home. Milton worked for a long time as a tractor mechanic at Budach Implement in New Richland. She remembers he decided to start his own business when, after he had been paid $2.85 an hour for years, a new worker was hired at $5 an hour–and neither he nor a co-worker were offered a raise.
She has pictures of the one-room schoolhouse she and Milton purchased in the 1950s and remodeled; it was located along County Road 9 just a few miles outside Waseca. When Milton’s business was at its most active, she said, the yard would be full of tractors and other equipment in need of repair.
In the meantime, Viola acquired a job at the E.F. Johnson Company. She remembers her starting wage was $1.50 an hour. She worked her way up to being a “lead lady” with as many as 50 “girls” under her. Their job was to assemble circuit boards. The task entailed arranging the small pieces on the boards, then using a device with a foot pedal to fasten them in place.
Viola remembers working at E.F. Johnsons for 30 years. She recalls times when she would be called in to work with company engineers–”the big guys”--to assist with practical aspects of assembling products. 
“And me with only an eighth-grade education,” she marvels.
Not long after Milton’s death, Viola moved into town. Quilting has returned as a consistent element of her life at the request of the quilting groups at her home church, St. Peter of Otisco, and St. John’s Lutheran Church in Waseca.
“They cut the ten-inch squares,” says Johnson matter-of-factly, “and I sew them together.”  Each full-sized quilt requires 48 squares. Typically, she says she sews one quilt a day, which requires about five hours of her time.
Johnson is a member of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Otisco, which is a sister congregation to St. Peter in New Richland, sharing the time of Pastor Scott Williams. According to group organizer Denise Joecks, St. Peter has seven volunteer quilters who meet Monday afternoons September through May. Group members also perform many tasks independently at home so their time together can be used for the more labor-intensive work of framing, pinning and quilting.
“Viola helps us out tremendously,” observes Joecks. “And she takes such joy in doing something that helps people. I’m happy she’s being recognized.”
Joecks mentions that once quilts are assembled, the St. Peter group looks first for local organizations, including shelters for those who have experienced domestic abuse, or for the homeless. Quilts are also donated to Lutheran World Relief and sometimes other missions or charities.
Especially in the summer when the St. Peter group is less active, Johnson also sews for the quilters of Waseca’s St. John Lutheran. Organizer Ann Reudy mentions her group has 27 members. Roughly 20 gather every Monday all year long to work on quilting projects. Reudy relates the group donates about 230 quilts a year to Lutheran World Relief, about 100 to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and about 100 to the local Santa Anonymous program. 
“The community is really generous about donating supplies,” she observes. The St. John Quilters make quilts and blankets in a variety of sizes, including for infants. The group has other service projects as well, including making dresses out of pillowcases and wrapping fabric into bandages  for missions in Haiti and making “care bags” to be sent to reservations.
“We really appreciate Viola’s help with our quilts,” comments Reudy. “She loves doing it, and it helps us keep all these projects moving forward.”

 

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