By Joe Jarosz
Northeast News
April 1, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — A new month means new programs and classes at the North-East Library.

Along with its regularly scheduled programs that teach Spanish or help children make crafts, the library is hosting a five-week genealogy class, tax preparation course and welcoming back the combination book and quilting club.

Debbie Gamm, senior library technical assistant [LTA], said the genealogy class begins Wednesday, April 1, and takes place in the morning, from 9:30 – 11 a.m. The month long program will take place every Wednesday in April. The library will also host a Not-So-Extreme couponing course twice in April; first at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, April 14, and the second class will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 19. The tax preparation course is a week long, from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. beginning Wednesday, April 1, and lasting until Tuesday, April 7, however there will not be tax classes on Friday, April 3, and Sunday, April 5.

Read, Quilt, Talk, a program Gamm hosts herself, meets at 6 p.m. on the second Tuesday of every month. The ongoing program — which started last October — is a book club that first discusses the book the group is reading then discusses a quilting project or a piece someone in the group is creating. At the April meeting, Gamm said one of its members is bringing in a special quilt for discussion.

“It’s called the Harzfeld’s Label Quilt,” Gamm said, explaining Harzfeld’s was a locally based department store which specialized in women’s and children’s high-end clothing. The quilt is made entirely of clothing labels.

Dale Walker, the gentleman who owns the quilt, will present the quilt and its story at the meeting. Gamm said the story behind the quilt is Walker came into ownership of the quilt sometime in the 1960’s. The quilt was custom made for someone else at a local tailor shop, but was never picked up by the original owner. The fabric of the quilt is, as Gamm described, a silk or satin, which she said is “extremely hard to quilt on.”

“Dale saw it and commented on it because the work is really nice,” Gamm said. “The original owner is a complete mystery.”

Gamm hopes anyone with any information on the quilt attends the meeting because she and Walker would love to learn more about its backstory.

For more information on the library’s programs, visit www.kclibrary.org/north-east or call 816-701-3485.