Ron Simpson stands before an auditorium filled with about 500 people. The school band and choir have just finished patriotic anthems. A speech has been given recounting Simpson’s Navy service during the Vietnam War.
Now, two women step forward and stand on either side of Simpson, wrapping him in a large quilt—handmade just for him.
“It felt pretty good to me,” he says, remembering that day in 2018.
Nestled in the Black Hills, the small town of Hill City, South Dakota (pop. 937), has infused its annual Veterans Day celebrations with creative craft. Since 2015, the community has honored about six veterans each year with quilts made by the local Heart of the Hills Quilters guild.
It’s a deeply meaningful gesture for many of the honorees, who range in age from WWII veterans to active duty service members. Simpson says it was the first time he felt thanked for his service.
A Number of Hands
Quilter Lori Comer is the spark behind the guild’s “valor appreciation” tradition. She says the idea came to her after the guild started donating blankets to an organization that serves disabled vets.
“I thought it was such a cool project. However, we never got to see the veterans. We never got to feel how they felt when they got it,” she explains.
So Comer decided to use quilts as a medium to publicly honor the veterans in her own community. “I have cried every single time,” she says of the ceremony.
The guild opens nominations each year, and friends and family members of veterans submit their names and stories. They rely on donations and grants, including from the South Dakota Arts Council, to purchase fabric.
Each quilt features patriotic scenes of red, white, and blue. Comer says quilts-in-progress are sometimes passed to different guild members (there are 57!) “so that it’s been touched by a number of hands by the time it’s all done.”
“I’ve been to people’s houses, and they have them hanging on their walls. A man, well into his nineties, who received [a quilt] years ago, is always covered up with his valor quilt when he has his afternoon nap,” she says.
“Not too long ago, I was at a funeral where one was draped over the coffin.”
From the Heart
Even before Valor Appreciation Quilts, Heart of Hills members were no strangers to giving back. The VA hospice lays “dignity quilts” over patients who pass away. A domestic violence shelter in the area goes through hundreds of handmade pillowcases. Dogs at the local Humane Society sleep in beds made of fabric scraps. All donated by the guild.
“Quilts from the heart” are distributed throughout Hill City to those who “have something going on in their lives,” Comer says, whether that be grieving the loss of a loved one or reckoning with a recent cancer diagnosis.
Quilting “brings people together,” she says. “Maybe it’s something that we can relate to, the warmth of being wrapped up in a quilt.”