Joy and caring ruled Plainfield woman’s life

PLAINFIELD – While working on a quilt the other day, Ada Findlay of Plainfield suddenly stopped to check her work and found she had pieced together the wrong sides of some squares.

Ada believes the prompting might have come from heaven, sent by her twin sister, Ann Taylor of Plainfield and most recently of Sheridan. Ann was a more precise quilter. Regardless of how it happened, Ada is thankful.

“It saved me hours of work,” Ada said.

Growing up on a Plainfield farm, Ada said she and Ann preferred bailing hay to 4-H sewing projects, never realizing that one day, Ann would make and give away 140 quilts in a 25-year period to anyone Ada knew was having a baby.

“She even made quilts for my friends, even though she never met their kids,” said Linda Taylor of Sheridan, Ann’s daughter. “At her wake, one of my friends brought three baby quilts and said, ‘Look at what your mom made for each of my kids.’ ”

Although both Ann and Ada sewed – with Ada making her wedding gown and Ann making her bridesmaid’s dress to accompany it – it wasn’t until the late 1970s that Ann started quilting.

They met monthly with six other women in a group they called SAG (Stitch and Gab). Ada said she herself had quilted since high school, but never with the precision and volume that Ann did.

“She liked everything to be planned beautifully and carried out beautifully,” Ada said.

But Ann, a former United Airlines stewardess, showed her care for others in a variety of ways. She was a proud 6-gallon blood donor. For many years, she volunteered with the Plainfield High School band, chaperone trips and managing the uniforms, hemming and repairing as needed, said Ann’s son, Roy Taylor of Yorkville.

Ann also donated many artifacts to the Plainfield Historical Society and worked hard to locate descendants of her friends, so Ann could give them the letters those friends had written to her, Roy said. But it was like Ann to make the extra effort.

Roy recalled how, when he was 7 and expressed an interest in space programs, Ann wrote to NASA, as well as the Johnson Space Center, asking for information she could share with Roy.

“One of the original seven astronauts wrote back, thanking her for the interest,” Roy said.

So when Ann was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she refused to let it rule her life, Linda said. She remained infectiously upbeat, to the point of passing out cookies to the nurses when she had chemotherapy treatments, and volunteering at Plymouth Congregational Church in Plainfield following a particularly grueling treatment.

“She got up every day and put on lipstick and earrings,” Linda said.

Ann attended her class reunion a month before her death, wearing the matching “Class of 1959” sweatshirts she had made for her and Ada, and then voted Nov. 4, the day before her death at age 73, Ada said.

During Ann’s last couple weeks, she climbed the stairs to her sewing room to make one last quilt for her hospice nurse, who was having a baby, Linda said. She then started a barn quilt. Ada stitched the top part as a surprise for Ann.

Two hours after Ada showed Ann her work – at Ann’s insistence – she was gone. Ada said she will finish that quilt for Ann and looks forward to one day reuniting with her twin.

“I’ll meet her in the quilt shop in heaven,” Ada said, “where every corner matches and every color blends perfectly.”

• To feature someone in “An Extraordinary Life,” contact Denise M. Baran-Unland at 815-280-4122 or dunland@shawmedia.com.