Legally Blind at 50, This 86-Year-Old Grandma Has Sewn and Donated Over 3,000 Quilts of Comfort
After learning to quilt from TV, this legally blind grandma has stitched thousands of quilts for those in need
Sonya Smithart, who is legally blind, learned to quilt from a TV program. Now, at 86, she has sewn and donated more than 3,000 quilts to people in need. Here, she shares her story with Woman’s World.
Clutching a pad and pencil, Sonya Smithart sat close to her TV as she watched Quilt in a Day with Eleanor Burns. Legally blind, Sonya scribbled the host’s instructions in large letters. After years of dreaming, the West Columbia, South Carolina, mother of three grown children finally decided, I’m going to teach myself to quilt.
Growing up on a small farm in the early 1950s, Sonya loved watching her mom and other sharecropper wives gather around a homemade quilting frame made of tobacco sticks. “Will you show me how?” Sonya asked, but schoolwork and chores kept her busy. Shortly after high school, she married, started a family and worked long hours as a short-order cook to help make ends meet.
In 1989, a friend gave Sonya’s husband, Buddy, an old, tattered ribbon quilt. I’ll start by fixing this, Sonya thought after watching Quilt in a Day, and she took apart the quilt and reassembled it with fabric strips. “It’s as good as new!” Buddy marveled, and Sonya knew she was ready to sew a quilt from scratch.
Over the next several years, she made quilts for her 3 children, 6 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. But her mission quickly expanded. Her Uncle Carlisle, a missionary in India, cared for 25 orphaned children who slept on boards. Sonya’s heart went out to them, and so did her quilts. It took three months, but she completed 25 quilts for the children — and their note of thanks brought tears. This is the reason I learned to quilt, she realized.
Soon, church friends began giving her fabric scraps, and her son built a sewing room extension onto her mobile home. Sonya would spend 6 to 7 hours daily designing and stitching quilts. “This is the best gift I’ve received in years,” one senior said as Sonya and a friend distributed 150 quilts at a local retirement home.
In 36 years, Sonya has stitched and donated more than 3,000 quilts to the local VA hospital, Ronald McDonald House and child residential centers. Two of her children have also carried her quilts on missionary trips across South America. Foreign exchange students have taken them home to England, Scotland and Sweden. Now 86, Sonya still spends four hours a day making quilts for hurricane victims in North Carolina and children displaced by floods in Virginia.
“The Lord inspired me and gave me this ability for a reason,” she says. “My mission is offering comfort to those who need it—and what brings more comfort than a warm, cozy quilt?”
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