Anne’s sister Jay and all of Jay’s family are avid baseball fans. Because they reside in Seattle, they are Mariner’s fans. It is my sincere belief that most of any season’s Mariner home games have at least some of Jay’s family in attendance. This last Christmas, Jay, et al, gifted us with the Seattle Mariner blanket pictured in the above photo’s background. It was an attendance prize that was handed out at one of last season’s Mariner’s games. It features a compass rose that is an integral part of the ball team’s logo. Call it serendipity or call it The Gift of the Magi done right this time, but Anne had been working on a quilted compass rose, honoring the Mariners and more broadly Seattle’s maritime tradition. After much work and rework it was delivered this week. It is also pictured above.
I always love to slip a little history lesson in whenever I can and this seems as good an opportunity as any. The preceding photograph is of a model of the tugboat, Martha Foss and was in the Missouri History Museum exhibit, Homelands, How Women Made the West, as does the following quoted text.
Thea Foss was a Norwegian immigrant and Puget Sound resident, in 1889 she scraped up five dollars to buy a neighbor’s rowboat, spruced it up and sold it at a profit. She was soon purchasing and renting a fleet of rowboats, with the assistance of her husband Andrew. From rowboats, they branched out into motorized launches and then tug boats.
Thea Foss was the founder of Foss Maritime, the largest tugboat company in the western United States. She was the real-life person on which the fictional character “Tugboat Annie” was based. The legend of Tugboat Annie began with a series of Saturday Evening Post stories. These led to a series of movies and eventually to a TV series by the same name. Martha Foss is a descendant. Here is a clip from the 1933 movie, Tugboat Annie. In this clip Annie is helping her son with his homework. Somehow I find this appropriate.
I’ve added a link to my friend and former high school classmate, Cooper. Coop’s blog is called Lefty Parent. He lives in LA, where lo these many years ago Anne and I last saw him in the real world. There is a whole blog post there, so I won’t go any further, except to say, that I should have added his site to my link list months ago, so check it out!
Anne,
The quilt is beautiful!
Ron
Gorgeous work on the quilt, Pooh!
Hey – you beat me to the punch. I was planning to get a picture posted, but had not gotten it off the camera. – Well, your camera is better anyway. And I immediately noted the Foss name, although I did not know the history.
And – I noted the link to Cooper JC Zales blog yesterday and went for a visit.
I was particularly drawn to two past blogs about his youth – and JLO or Junior Light Opera.
This was housed out of Commie High – and I was also a participant, although in the backstage arena (orchestra once). I don’t know if Cooper ever really knew I was there or not. He was a few years ahead, but I was aware of him because you guys knew him.
I’ve been following Cooper’s blog for a while too and I think your sister-in-law’s is really good too!
Anne appreciates all of your complements and would respond herself, but unfortunately she finds that her nose is buried in a book. – Management
L O L !
She really does appreciate these comments, as do I, so keep them coming.
The quilt is beautiful – not (currently) having either the patience or the attention span to work on one, I have great appreciation for the work that goes into them (my mom quilted for a while when I was a kid).
Re the tug “Martha Foss”… one of my k-12 classmates had a younger sister (in my brother’s grade) who was known as Marcie Foss, but I think her given name was actually “Martha”….