Published: June 13, 2009 09:02 pm         

Lifetime of craft remembered in ‘Lincoln Doily’

Terre Haute woman created intricate work by hand

TERRE HAUTE — When Dorothy Higgs was about 9 years old in the early 1920s, her sister had diphtheria, leaving Dorothy and the rest of her large family quarantined inside their Terre Haute home.

To pass the time – and to keep her children busy – Dorothy’s mother taught her kids how to crochet rugs using strips of old clothes.

“We had to have something to do,” Higgs said.

Within a short time, Higgs’ neighbor showed Dorothy how to crochet an edge for a curtain. Later, Higgs would learn to sew clothes, knit afghans and make quilts.

“I was a perfectionist at anything I did,” Higgs said, laughing. “I made my first dress when I was 12 years old.” She also later made a graduation dress for her sister.

Now, on the wall of her room of the Cannon Inn in Terre Haute, Higgs, 95, has on display a historic doily she made around 1940 when she was about 26 years old. The doily is a replica of one owned by President Abraham Lincoln and is known as the “Lincoln Doily.”

“I squandered a whole dime” to order a pattern and instructions for making the doily, Higgs said laughing. She ordered the pattern from the Terre Haute Star, the city’s longtime morning newspaper. Newspapers in those days often sold crochet and sewing patterns to readers. “That was what I learned to sew by,” she said.

Higgs, whose father worked on the railroad, was born in Edgar County, Ill., in 1914. When she was still a baby, her family moved to Shepardsville in Vigo County and then to a home near Stop 5 on the interurban rail line on the north side of Terre Haute. She attended Rankin School and later Woodrow Wilson Junior High School the first year it was open. Her family eventually settled around 15th and Poplar Streets and Higgs attended Gerstmeyer High School before again moving to Libertyville northwest of Terre Haute near the Illinois state line.

She married Oran Higgs, a Libertyville farmer, in 1942. Oran Higgs died in 1996 and Higgs lived on her own until last year, when she moved to the assisted living community near Fort Harrison Road. Her small room contains many samples of her crochet work, several family photos and a photograph she took more than 50 years ago of a favorite family dog sitting on a child’s snow sled on a winter day.

About 1920, “everybody crocheted,” Higgs said. Living and working on a farm, Higgs only had time to crochet in the evenings during the winter months, she said. Crocheting and exchanging crochet patterns was a genuine pastime in those days, she said.

“Everybody either crocheted or made quilts,” she said. “I did both.”

The Lincoln doily is about 30 inches across and hangs proudly on the wall of Higgs’ room. It is probably the largest crochet project Higgs ever made, she said.

“At that time, nothing was too difficult to crochet,” she said, smiling.

After learning the skill at age 9, Higgs continued to crochet until very recently when her sight became too weak. Recently, Higgs began to give away much of her crochet work.

But she will not likely give away the Lincoln doily, which has more meaning this year, the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. She also has a framed copy of the original instructions mailed to her Libertyville home by the Terre Haute Star.

“I just thought it was pretty,” Higgs said of the doily. “I never thought it would be historical.”

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.