Phyllis Biffle Elmore

This is a great story and easy read, I had a hard time putting it down.

P L Moore Wonderful Read

This book came highly recommended and now I know why. It is touching, inspiring, insightful and so beautifully written! I couldn't put it down!

Leanne Loved this book!

You don’t need to be a quilter to appreciate this book. So worth the read!

Beverly A Brown Exceptional book

This author is gifted and knows how to tell you her story.

Denise An excellent book! Highly recommended.

What a great book about a great journey and how life can make you better or life can make you bitter. Truly gives a better understanding of how human nature responds to the seasons of life. Loved this book and the genuine frankness of the author.

Christine Have the tissue box ready.

Presenting her thoughts to the world.

The day I was taken from my home and driven sixteen hours down a road in a car filled with strangers, to a house in the middle of nowhere, to be delivered to grandparents I’d never met, I felt alone, abandoned, angry, and very scared. It was 1957. I was four years old. The stigma of being given away followed me for years like a lost puppy nipping at my heels. It took my grandmother Lula’s love and a tattered old quilt to bring about my healing.

MORE ABOUT PHYLLIS

At age four, Phyllis Biffle Elmore was brought from her home in Detroit to the tiny town of Livingston, Alabama, to be raised by her grandmother, Lula Horn. Lonely and confused, she felt utterly abandoned until Grandma Lula enveloped her in all-encompassing love and a beautiful quilt. Phyllis listened intently to Lula’s epic stories of folks who had passed on and watched as her grandmother turned their clothing into breathtaking “quilts of souls” for their families.
Grandma Lula’s generosity of spirit, strong will, and creative soul animate every page of this marvelous memoir, which, like her quilts, paints portraits of extraordinary black women born before and after the Civil War—enslaved people, laundresses, storytellers, healers, and quilters whose stories have gone untold until now. Weaving back and forth in time, Phyllis stitches together true tales of racism, sexism, and colorism, but also strength and pride, creating a multigenerational patchwork honoring her family and ancestors. With significant history and mesmerizing storytelling, Quilt of Souls transforms oral tradition into a beautifully written document, powerfully presented and preserved for posterity.

Praise

“Like the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, who create masterpieces from cast-off fabrics, Phyllis Biffle-Elmore in Quilt of Souls: A Memoir uses snippets of history and fragments of memories to craft a narrative that is a powerful and poignant read.”

— Jessica B. Harris New York Times Bestselling author of High on the Hog

“Quilt of Souls reminds me of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. The moving tales of hardship, kindness and the unconditional love of family and neighbor can’t help but touch the reader's heart in Biffle-Elmore’s memories of life with her extraordinary grandmother. I can’t wait to recommend Quilt of Souls to my own book club.”

— Diane Chamberlain New York Times Bestselling author of The Silent Sister and The Last House on the Street

“A fascinating read that unravels exactly how us storytellers are born and made with the goal and purpose of retelling family history, culture, loves, losses, victories and tragedies of memorable people from the cradle to the grave. So, you take a young, scared city girl from Detroit, Michigan, and ....

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— Omar Tyree New York Times Bestselling Author and NAACP Image Award Winner

Elmore's memoir of a childhood interrupted is profoundly moving, shedding light on a quintessentially American experience that is often overlooked. Sent from Detroit in the 1950s to live with her Grandma Lula Horn in rural Alabama, the little girl is nourished by the stories of family members who endeavored to survive the brutalities of the Jim Crow era. In the process of teaching her granddaughter how to honor the lives of their kith and kin in the patchwork quilts she crafts, Lula stitches Phyllistene's shattered spirit back together and helps her to forge an identity shaped by the redemptive power of forgiveness.

— Susan Rivers Award-winning author of The Second Mrs. Hockaday

Quilts

Growing up in the country, I would observe four to six women sitting around the quilting horse sewing or repairing a quilt that they brought to my grandparents' front yard.