Excerpts:
My name is Emma Lee Locklear, and I live in the home place of my father, Hezekiah Locklear, who was the third husband of Maggie Lowry Locklear.
My dad courted [Maggie]. She did not marry him the first time, and so-- he didn’t get married. She married Emeritus Chavis, and they lived together approximately nine or ten years, and he died.
And, again my dad sought her for a wife, and Calvin Locklear won her hand, and they lived there, next door to my dad. ... And Calvin went to Georgia, and whether he died there or, some stories say he was bitten by a snake, he didn’t return. And after a period of time, my dad won her hand.
... He married her in 1909, and they lived together there until 1931....
According to my mother, telling me that Maggie agreed to marry him, provided that she was not asked any questions whatsoever about what happened to Henry Berry Lowry. And he told her, he would not. And I said, to my mother, “and he never did?” And she said, “he said he never did.”
…
She carried it with her to the grave. It wasn’t discussed.
... I was told that she worked and ditched right beside my dad, in the ditch.
...
I would like them [visitors] to take away her tenacity to work, not only in the house, but in the field, and yet had time to put that quilt together.
When my father [Hezekiah] died, he gave it [the quilt] and left it with my mother, Leola Locklear. And she treasured it because he had explained to my mother about her [Maggie] working on that quilt. And I’m almost of the opinion that she undoubtedly got the material through her three husbands because it is made of dress material and, the little pine cone patches, as well as pants.
...There was no sewing machines in those days. And each piece had to be ironed and placed together for that quilt. ... you had to take those materials, cut them, iron the pieces down, and then try to get them under. And I’ve never seen, of those that have been made, the unique way that Maggie put her patches together. When I look at it, ... I admire how she put it together, and … the time, and … It was something that she was making and leaving for her people.
...
This is my way of trying to tell people about the work that Maggie put in it, and that I am just beyond words when it comes to the idea that it’s a symbol now for our people.
I knew it was special, even as a little girl, asking mom that I wanted that quilt. You know, people would come and want to buy it, and she’d say, “It’s not for sale,” and when they’d leave, I’d tell her, “I want that quilt.”
- An interview with Emma Lee Locklear
I have nothing but the greatest admiration for Maggie Lowry and what she put in that quilt and the heritage that she left to us, as Lumbee people.
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