25 Years Ago 1982

If youre used to working hard all your life, why slow down just because youre 89. Delmer Heighton certainly hasnt slowed down. In fact, hes become a one-man quilt factory, turning out a very handsome product. Heighton has produced 26 queen-sized quilts in a year and a half. Quilt making was suggested to him by his daughter, Dorothy Cooper, who was looking for projects to keep him busy. And busy he has been. Heighton works a 12-hour day by his own accounting. Each time he reproduces, no, improves upon the same design his daughter originally spotted in a magazine. His quilts are made up of 20 15-inch flowered blocks. Each block is composed of 400 colored cloth scraps folded into triangle-like petals and sewn in a circle pattern. Heighton estimates that to date he has sewn 213,000 of the petals which are about an inch and a half long. Comparing his first quilt to his latest shows a clear and dramatic improvement in his artists eye. Rough circles have become perfect and the blending of colors is simply beautiful. I mix dark and light circles to accent the colors, he said. I call it painting quilts with color. The beneficiaries of his quilt-making talents have been his grandchildren but his productivity has outstripped his progeny. Heighton said he will be donating a future quilt to help raise funds to promote the Cascade Valley Hospitals expansion project. After that, hes looking forward to selling his creations for $300 or more apiece. He is quite adamant that neither calloused and numb hands nor cataracts in his eyes will slow his progress. His daughter and grandchildren help with collecting materials and pinning and sewing the assembled product to avoid his having to get down and work on the floor. I used to take a lot of naps, he said. Not any more. His record for completing a quilt is 18 days. He plans to finish number 27 in 17 days. I just cant stay away from it, he said. Ill work up to 10 at night. It seems like I get my second wind after dinner. It looks like Id be tired of making quilts by now, but Im more enthused it just grows on me.

50 Years Ago 1957

Arthur Moll filed the prize winning entry when he identified the Harold Murphy farm, now occupied by Mr. C.W. Johnson and his family. Mr. Moll picked up a $5 cash prize from Fowler Agency. C.W. Johnson got his first taste of farming in the wheat lands of North Dakota, where his father, Axel Johnson, operated a farm in the hard-bitten depression years. The family moved to Washington and the elder Johnson is now living in Arlington, having retired from his farm on Cisco Heights. This farm was purchased his son, C.W. Johnson, but is not equipped for dairy farming. He is now in his second year of operating the Harold Murphy Diary on a share basis, and tending young stock on the 180-acre farm. The Johnsons have two small children, four and two years of age, both boys.