I’ve Danced My Life Away

I’ve Always Done Things with My Hands

When we lived in Groton, I wanted to do something. I’ve always done things with my hands and I thought I’d like to learn to paint. There was a woman in the neighborhood who was a very fine painter and sometimes she gave lessons, so I went to her and took some lessons. From then on I painted all the time. I’m still doing little things.

FS: I didn’t do that. (pointing to paintings)
ED: That’s the picture of your house.
FS: That was my house, but a very famous artist did that who was a friend of ours, and I hooked a rug for him. It was kind of a Yankee swap.

I first painted in oil, and then when we moved to Florida I took lessons in acrylic, and those are all acrylics there. (pointing to pictures on wall) I was very prolific! I painted and painted and painted. I had paintings in back of the sofa and under the chairs and everywhere. I just tired my family and friends out giving them paintings I guess. So then I didn’t feel like having the mess around anymore so I just do watercolors now. I do greeting cards now too. Once in a while I feel like doing something so I paint a little bit, but always watercolors now, which I didn’t take lessons in. I just kind of learned it.

I do all kinds of handiwork. At one time I taught cake decorating, and I was having shows all the time. I had about 24 pupils a week, and American Home magazine heard about me. I was living in Sudbury in that house then, and they called and asked me to come down to New York and do some cakes for them in their kitchen. I said I wouldn’t go unless my husband could go with me, so they said yes and I went. I did two articles for the magazine for them. When that was over I said no more! No more anything! They wanted me to go on TV and I said no way, no way, don’t want it anymore. So I stopped cake decorating. It was too much, too much. Too hard working in that kitchen with the great big klieg lights, you know, that they have in the movies and everything. Oh, goodness. No more! So that ended my cake decorating career. I gave away all my equipment and everything. Now I just do little things like embroidering and greeting cards.