Remembrance and Reflection

My square is in tribute to Philip Michael Williams. He and I were playmates as preschoolers in Chelan, Washington. We were in the same class at school; we both graduated in 1965. However, I moved in the 9th grade to Manson so really didn’t know much about him after that.

I chose to prepare my square in Phil’s honor as he died from HIV/AIDS in 1988. His parents, with whom I got reacquainted in the late 1980s, shared with me that the Central Washington Hospital in Wenatchee, Washington, refused to admit him for treatment for his HIV/AIDS and insisted that he be treated in an ambulance in the parking lot until he could be transferred to Swedish Hospital.

Phil was a graduate of the University of Washington in 1973 in Architecture. He was associated from 1980 until 1988 with Fanfare Arts of Woodinville, a company specializing in the construction of parade floats. He also worked on parade floats in the North Central Washington area and was involved in Apple Blossom floats with his partner and friend, John Benham. Their floats won sweepstakes six time in a row.

My quilt square tries to honor Phil and our hometown area of Lake Chelan. The dark blue in the upper left is the snow-capped slide ridge, a mountain overlooking the lake. On the right is a picture of the apple orchards that grew around the hills of the lake. Middle left depicts the town and, by implication, the people at the parade. The bottom shows the lake. The float in the mid-lower level on the street depicts an Apple Blossom float as Phil might have prepared it. I used crochet to depict the apple trees in bloom in the spring and more crochet for the apple blossoms on the float. The sun is peaking out near the top as the day of the Apple Blossom Festival was usually a sun-filled day with some clouds and very blue sky.