"No Place Like Home" sampler, Westport Island, ca. 1875
Item 104991 info
Westport Island History Committee
Verlie's father, Charles E. Colby (1861-1939) was a farmer, carpenter and portable saw mill owner who raised six children with his wife Annie May Perkins. Colby was skilled at wood crafting and needlework as well. His daughter Nettie wrote on the back of this crewel embroidery sampler: "Father made this when a boy. Mother gave it to me 1946."
In 1987, daughter Verlie Colby noted that her father,
"used to make things for us – cradles for our dolls and blocks. Each one of us had over a hundred different-sized blocks in all shapes and dimensions. He sanded them and painted them: 200 red ones, 200 white ones, 200 blue ones. We spent hours with them. We'd get down on the floor and we'd set them all up in all kinds of shapes, touch the first one and watch them all go down. That was one thing. And he made us game boards. He made us a Parcheesi board so we could play Parcheesi. Oh he used to make all kinds of things for us. We had fun."
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