Islander’s hobby helps spread good cheer

Grand Mananer Jeanne Ingalls recently reached a milestone with a hobby that has grown into an island‑wide project to spread cheer and lift spirits. Ingalls makes greeting card booklets for birthdays, Christmas, get‑well and other occasions, which she distributes to the nursing home, members of her church and others in the community, and on Sunday, September 21, she presented her 1,000th booklet to Kathy Frost for her birthday.

It started in March 1994 when she made a birthday booklet for fellow church member Zelia Guptill. "She was happy with it, and I guess it encouraged me to do more," Ingalls recalls. "Everybody should have a birthday card."

She now makes around 80 booklets a year. Roughly eight by 10 inches and tied with ribbon, each has four Bristol‑board pages with themed and colour‑coordinated cutouts from the many greeting cards she recycles. People donate cards and pictures to her, and she has a big stash of cards she's received herself, including about 90 from her recent 95th birthday party. She shows off a pair of them with a chuckle: a "65th" card with a "30th" tucked inside it. She files the cards by colour and often cuts out elements such as flowers to fit amongst larger pictures. "I can sit for hours and do that," she says. "I love to keep busy."

"Busy" is an understatement: Ingalls is a talented hand‑stitch quilter who has made many quilts, including a family treasure with outlines of many relatives' hands; she's made dozens of bridesmaids' dresses and a couple of wedding dresses, embroidered pillows, aprons, mittens for Action Ministries, made children's clothes and still does mending for people. She doesn't recall ever having taken a sewing lesson. She has also served as Community Life Church's historian. While she's "obsessed with writing things down" and has a record of all of her thousand card booklets, she's not sure how many quilts and other things she's made. "I've given away everything I've made," she says.

Frost has received some of Ingalls' other creations, including a pillow. "I'm so honoured to get her 1,000th card," she says. "I'm going to treasure it." They shared a visit looking through a photo album of Ingalls' work and remembering the recipients.

Ingalls has already finished her Christmas booklets for the nursing home – about 30 – and plans to continue as long as she can. She isn't sure what her next milestone number will be, but islanders will continue to receive and appreciate her thoughtful greetings.