By Diane Bender
When I was a young girl growing up in Kansas I loved going to Pennsylvania in the summer to visit my grandparents.
Their basement had two sections: one with Grandpa’s tools, which was interesting but untouchable, and one with Grandma’s beautiful handmade items from around the world that begged to be touched.
My sister and I helped pack the boxes that were to be shipped to various places in the United States. My grandma was Edna Ruth Byler, and that s
ection of the basement was the beginnings of what grew to be Ten Thousand Villages.
In 1946, Edna accompanied her husband, Joe, to Puerto Rico. There the Mennonite Central Committee workers showed her the fine needlework the women in Puerto Rico were making and asked her to find a way to market the pieces in the United States. She did.
She carried the embroidered samples in the trunk of her car and traveled to churches showing the handmade items and telling the stories of the artisans. Within a few years, she acquired additional hand-carved woodenware from Haiti and cross-stitch needlework from Palestinian refugees.
She later opened a gift shop in her basement. She loved showing customers the beautiful items and telling the stories of how they were made. For 25 years, Grandma traveled from the south to Canada and from coast to coast to introduce people to these handmade items and telling the stories of the people who made them.
When I lived in Houston, I volunteered at the Ten Thousand Villages in Rice Village, served on the Board of Directors as Secretary, then Vice-President, and finally President. Before considering a move to the Portland area I first checked to make sure there was a store nearby. As I unpack boxes at Ten Thousand Villages in Portland, OR, I am reminded of filling boxes so many years ago in Grandma’s basement in Pennsylvania.
As I help customers find a gift or tell them something about an item that they are appreciating, I feel a connectedness to the many people who work to bring these handmade goods to buyers and a very special connection to my grandma.
Tags: Add new tag, Fair Trade, Portland, Ten Thousand Villages
This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
What a great post! I can’t wait to share it with my volunteers here at Ten Thousand Villages in Ottawa, Ontario.
Thank you so much Diane for sharing your memories of your grandmother. We tell her story many times here to volunteers and customers, so it is nice to find some more information.
It’s great to know we’re connected by the Internet as well as by our values. Thanks for checking in with our blog.
Byler is an inspiration to all of us today. One person can make a huge difference!