Local Marine receives Quilt of Valor for her service
More than 209,000 Quilts of Valor have been presented to United States soldiers and veterans since the program began in 2003.
That includes 366 last week, Nancy McCormack, a Hatfield resident and copresident of Homemaker’s Country Quilters, said while presenting a Quilt of Valor to 103-year-old Grace Bergman at Peter Becker Community, where Bergman lives.
Bergman, the third of 10 children in her family, is a 1933 graduate of Hatfield High School who served in the U.S. Marines from Aug. 4, 1943, until Dec. 7, 1945, according to biographical information.
“After boot camp at Camp Lejeune, N.C., she was assigned to headquarters Marine Corps in Arlington, Va., and was a staff sergeant over a large office of Marines maintaining personnel records of the Marines serving all over the world,” the information says.
Bergman is the oldest living female Marine in Pennsylvania and the second oldest in the country, McCormack said.
The oldest one, who is 104, lives in New York, McCormack said.
“She actually grew up in Pennsylvania and then moved to New York,” McCormack said.
Each year when the Homemaker’s Country Quilters holds its annual quilt show and sale, members are given a choice of making a challenge quilt or some other quilt of their choosing, she said. This year, the challenge was to make a Quilt of Valor or a similar one for non-military roles such as police or fire officers, she said.
McCormack, who met Bergman at church, said she was surprised to hear Bergman had never received a Quilt of Valor, and she decided to make one for her.
McCormack said she put together the quilt, which was done in an “Unfurled Glory” pattern, and Don Fagnan did the quilting.
“Gorgeous” and “Look at that” were some of the comments made by people in attendance as the quilt was presented the afternoon of Jan. 25.
“That was really a wonderful thing,” Peggy Bergman, Grace Bergman’s daughter, said while thanking those involved in the presentation.
“She’ll remember it for as long as she lives,” Peggy Bergman said, “and I can’t get over somebody who didn’t even know my mother would do something so beautiful.”
Grace Bergman said she plans to have the quilt hung on her wall.
The quilt will also be displayed at the annual quilt show, McCormack said.
Blooms of Spring, the Homemaker’s Country Quilters 2019 quilt show and sale, will be Friday and Saturday, April 5 and 6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Penn State Extension Building on Bridge Road (Route 113) near Skippack. Information is available at homemakerscountryquilters.org.
More than 150 quilts will be on display, according to show information.