Four veterans thanked with quilts

The Fabric and Friends Quilt Guild of Greenfield is closing in on 30 veterans that they have presented quilts to in their 11-year history.

The group, which includes members from all over the local area, exists to pair their love of quilting with thanking local veterans. They thank veterans for their service by presenting as many of them as possible with a red, white and blue quilt that is made by the ladies of the group. All members make the blocks which are then set together and quilted.

Each year, an average of veterans receive red, white and blue quilts. This year’s recipients were Lee Guthrie, Marlin Wyllie and David Homan. An additional quilt recipient, winning a door prize as a veteran present at Saturday’s presentation at The Gathering Place to honor his fellow veterans, was Robert J. Wyllie.

Grace Evans of Bridgewater and Shirley Mueller of Greenfield are charter members of the guild, which began presenting quilts to veterans in 2013. They said this year’s presentations brought the total number of quilts given to 29.

“It was my idea to start it because back in 2013, with Quilts of Valor, you made the quilt top, sent it off, and you never saw it again,” Evans said. “Now, with Quilts of Valor, you choose who you give it to, and several from Adair County have also received a Quilt of Valor. That’s a different program entirely, but this is a local program and stays completely in Adair County.”

Keeping it local was important to charter members. They wanted to know who they were making quilts for. It was noted many times during Saturday’s presentation how much local veterans do after their service in their communities as part of local veteran organizations.

A couple of highlights of the group’s history are when 10 quilts were presented to veterans at the Good Samaritan Center in Fontanelle in 2019 and when five more were given to veterans at Greenfield Rehabilitation and Health Care Center earlier this year.

Veterans presented with quilts Saturday included:

• Lee Guthrie of Greenfield, who served in the U.S. Air Foce from 1961-1964. He was a lay speaker at chapel on Lowry Air Force Base. He went to medic school, spent 18 months in Okinawa, Japan, was a survival training instructor, a parachute jump instructor and solo jungle and ocean survival instructor. He went to Denver, receiving hazardous duty pay for pressurized chamber altitude training of pilots, including U-2 pilots.

• David Homan of Fontanelle, who enlisted in the U.S. Air Force at Fort Des Moines after graduating high school in 1964. He attended Lackland Air Force Base for basic training. He was transferred to Westover Air Force Base and assigned to a Security Police squadron. He later joined the K-9 Corps and was sent back to Lackland for dog handler training. In October 1966, Homan received orders for deployment to Vietnam and was assigned to an air base where he guarded that base and between Vietnamese outposts with dogs. He returned stateside in 1967 and his enrollment ended the next year. He enlisted in the Iowa Army National Guard in 1978 with the 1168th Transportation Company in Red Oak. The unit was activated for Desert Storm from December 1990 to May 1991, supporting other units in Saudi Arabia 30 miles from the Iraqi border. Homan retired from the military in 1996 after 24 years of service.

• Marlin Wyllie served in the Army National Guard in the Atlantic for 6 1/2 years in the infantry. Later transferring to Red Oak, he was a truck driver. He was deployed to Desert Storm, driving a truck named Coyote Run. He was in Desert Storm for 5-6 months. He remembers a flight standing knee-to-knee with other soldiers during his deployment. In Saudi Arabia, he hauled over 14,000 prisoners as well as many prisoners of war.

• Robert J. Wyllie served in the U.S. Marine Corps for three years. He served one year in Vietnam, serving as a batallion legal chief and returned stateside, serving in Washington D.C. for about a year until he was discharged in 1971.

“It’s really great to do this because the Vietnam veterans, especially, were not welcomed home. This is rewarding some of those who served but were not really welcomed back,” Evans said. "

The Fabric and Friends Quilt Guild meets 6:30 p.m. second Monday at The Gathering Place in Greenfield. All quilters are welcome to participate. The group meets every month, except for July and December.