When Eleanor Barnes moved to Salemtowne retirement community, her husband was seriously ill. So she spent much of her time at the side of his bed.
"I felt the need to keep my hands busy," Barnes said.
Salemtowne volunteer Otelia Robinson taught Barnes to crochet, which led Barnes to participating in a project organized by Salemtowne volunteer Mary
Alspaugh -- crocheting or knitting caps, booties, afghans and such for the premature babies at Brenner Children's Hospital.
"Mary has a mailbox," Barnes said. "I can make caps and leave them in the mailbox, and they disappear. One of the things that I learned is how small the heads of premature babies are."
Someone told her to make the caps so they would fit an orange or the top of a can of food.
Barnes is one of 27 women who have participated in the project since Alspaugh took the first 125 items over to Brenner in June 1997. Alspaugh said that, over the years, many of the women have made hundreds of items, and she thinks that, altogether, Salemtowne women have made in the neighborhood of 10,000 items for Brenner.
Some of the women have died since the project started. Others have moved on to other activities. At the moment, eight women are making items.
"I think it's phenomenal what they do," said Leigh Anne Groves, Salemtowne's director of development. "All these ladies here are living examples of what's right and well in a world that is not always right and well."
Mary Dull found out about the project when she saw another resident knitting a cap.
"I said, ‘What are you doing?' She said, ‘I'm knitting caps for preemies.'"
Dull had four children born prematurely, and she lost two of them.
"I had a heart for this," Dull said. "They need intensive care. They don't have that strength."
Over the years, Dull has inspired others outside the Salemtowne community to begin making items for premature babies.
Dull and her husband, Carl -- "he's my main man" -- volunteer at their church -- Home Moravian. The church, which is in Old Salem, is open to visitors in the afternoon, and, one afternoon, a woman who stopped by saw Dull knitting.
"The woman didn't want to hear about the Moravians," Dull said. "She wanted to hear about the preemies."
Dull provided her with patterns, and the woman, who was from Atlanta, later wrote to say that she has been making things and donating them to a children's hospital there.
Although Lucy Doud doesn't live in Salemtowne, her brother Jim George does, and she has become an informal member of the Salemtowne community.
"I met so many talented women out here," Doud said.
She, too, started making items for the preemies.
Dot Foster heard about the project from Alspaugh. They play bridge together, and, when the subject came up one day, Foster liked the idea.
"I enjoy knitting," she said.
With some of the tricky parts, Foster has to give the caps and booties she knits her full attention. She can knit the more straightforward parts while she's watching television.
"It's very relaxing," she said.
Mostly, the women work on the caps and booties on their own. For a while, Julia Gilliam did them with some of the other women at a knitting-and-crocheting group that formed at Salemtowne a few years back. She soon developed a reputation as the one who could take care of difficult finishing touches.
"I'm a finisher," she said.
The women who knit or crochet for Brenner are active in a number of other ways as well. Doud paints. Foster has her bridge. Barnes plays piano for the retirement community's Sunday morning worship service.
Gilliam makes baskets that win blue ribbons at the Dixie Classic Fair and that sell in the Salemtowne gift shop. A residents' council uses the proceeds from the shop to pay for such things as movies for the Friday night movie night, books for Salemtowne's two libraries and a Wii game system. Wii bowling has proven to be particularly popular.
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at
kunderwood@wsjournal.com
.
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