The Veterans Memorial Museum Quilts of Valor chapter has been hard at work fulfilling requests for Lewis County veterans.
Ten more veterans were honored Thursday afternoon at the museum with their own handmade quilts, including a World War II veteran who joined the U.S. Navy at 16 years old and another veteran who served in the U.S. Army just after.
Quilts of Valor quilter Lynn Wiltzius said the chapter is still working on some of the more than 100 quilt requests received at last year’s Southwest Washington Fair.
“We hope to get them all done before the fair starts this year, because they asked us to be there all day instead of half a day,” Wiltzius said.
The veterans who received quilts Thursday included:
• Jens “Tony” Thompson, a U.S. Air Force major and pilot who served from 1954 to 1974 and in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
• Brando Skanes, a U.S. Navy petty officer first class who was a communications technician and served from 1976 to 1996.
• Curt Steffen, a U.S. Army specialist who was a helicopter mechanic and served from 1986 to 1990.
• Robert Heaney, a U.S. Marine Corps corporal who was an artilleryman and served from 1964 to 1970 in the Vietnam War.
• Billy Clark, U.S. Navy, a petty officer first class who was a heavy equipment operator for the Seabees and served from 1975 to 2006.
• Ken Paulson, a U.S. Army sergeant first class who was a medic and served from 1978 to 1998.
• Ruben Segovia, a U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force veteran, an infantryman in the Army who served from 1974 to 1978 then a munitions specialist in the Air Force from 1992 to 1998.
• Doreen Schweikl, a U.S. Air Force technical sergeant who was an operations intelligence specialist and served from 1977 to 1994.
• William “Bill” Murdock, a U.S. Navy petty officer second class who was a radar operator. He had to talk his mom into letting him join the Navy at the age of 16 in 1944 to serve in WWII and saw action in the Pacific Theater.
• Erle Cooper, a U.S. Army corporal, a truck mechanic who served from 1946 to 1949 and after being stationed in Fort Richardson, Alaska, ended up staying there, raised a family and eventually became mayor in Homer, Alaska.
Quilts of Valor is a nationwide organization started in 2003. It focuses on helping veterans find healing in part by gifting them handmade quilts. Hildi Mitchell, another quilter with the Veterans Memorial Museum, explained it was started by Catherine Roberts when her son, Nat, deployed to Iraq in 2003.
“Her goal was to see that returning troops were welcomed home with love and gratitude. She had the idea that she would round up quilt piecers and long-armed quilters and put them together to provide comforting and healing quilts to our veterans and service men and women,” Mitchell said.
Nationwide, Quilts of Valor has given out 343,365 quilts as of March 31, according to Mitchell, with the Veterans Memorial Museum chapter now having made 269 since it was founded around four and a half years ago.
The Veterans Memorial Museum Quilts of Valor chapter originally broke off from the Olympia chapter to help expand the organization across Southwest Washington and now has 18 members. To contact the chapter or for more information, visit its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VMMQOV.
To nominate a local veteran or someone still serving on active duty, visit the Veterans Memorial Museum at 100 SW Veterans Way in Chehalis or the museum’s booth at the annual Southwest Washington Fair, which is scheduled to start Aug. 15. The Southwest Washington Fairgrounds are located at 1909 S. Gold St. in Centralia.
Nomination forms will be available and can be submitted at the museum or the fair booth. Nominations can also be made online at https://www.qovf.org/nominate_qov_tbw_certify/.
