CULTURE

We Don’t Know Our Neighbors and That’s Killing Us

Whatever happened to community?

My mother, Gloria Jean Berry Mueller, made this dress for a contest at our hometown’s sesquicentennial in 1994. (Photo courtesy of Kay Patterson)

Have you been inside your neighbor’s house? Probably not, and isn’t that strange? Imagine explaining to someone from another era that dozens of people live just steps away from you, and you know nothing about them. No names. No stories. Not even whether they’re OK.

I grew up in a real community

When I lived there, Concord, IL was a town of 200 (now even fewer) with 70 houses in it. At one time or another I was inside every single one of them. I doubt many people today can make such a claim about their hometown.

In 1994, my town celebrated its Sesquicentennial, and my mom, who loved quilting, came up with the idea of quilting a scale model of the town. Everyone received a piece of cloth to represent their lot and was invited to decorate it however they wanted.

And then my mom and other volunteers sewed this into a quilt that now lives in the town hall. One relative newcomer told my mom back then that if he didn’t know where somebody lived, he’d pop into the town hall to consult this “map.”