Creola Bennett Pettway

According to Helen Witherspoon of Milton, MA, these quilts (2014.2048-9) were made by one of her two great-aunts, Creola Bennett Pettway (b. 1927) or sister Georgianna Pettway (d. 2012). Helen Witherspoon does not know which one made either quilt, because they were a gift from both and Creola Pettway is now in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease. When Helen Witherspoon visited family in Gee's Bend, she was usually given quilts or jars of preserved fruit or vegetables, because "this is what they had to give."

Creola Bennett Pettway was born in 1927. She was one of eleven children (four boys and seven girls) of Delia Bennett (1892-1976) and Eddie Bennett who had a farm in the southeast corner of Gee's Bend, an area called Brown's Quarters. Delia Bennett is described as, "the matriarch of perhaps the largest family of quilt producers in Gee's Bend" (see p. 336 of Beardsley, "Gee's Bend, The Women and Their Quilts" 2002). A photograph of Creola Pettway and an image of a tied comforter that she made in 1983 (the textile is described as "nylon blend, [tricot]") appears on pages 344-345 of same publication. Another Creola Pettway quilt, "Doves at the Window," made around 1955 of demin and white cotton, appears on page 346. A photograph of the singing group, the White Rose, of which she and her sister, Georgianna Pettway, were active members appears on page 344.