Local woman battles through Parkinson’s, arthritis to create art

Jane Stanley, 70, of Newton, likes to embroider and crochet.

During the past seven years, she’s created countless baby quilts, lap blankets, dolls and tablecloths, all with great care and amazing attention to detail.

In the ’70s and ’80s, she made Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls to sell at Christmastime. She does it for fun, and it gives her something to do.

But that’s not the most incredible part of the story.

Stanley was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 1988 and later given the more serious diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease — a degenerative disorder that, in most cases, will affect one’s speech and motor skills — in 1992.

She has been affected so badly by both conditions she can’t walk, and her hands have bent and curled over time.

Normal day-to-day life has become difficult because of the condition, yet — almost miraculously — she is able to work through her afflictions and create finely detailed works of embroidery and crochet.

“It steadies her, it calms her,” Stanley’s sister, Cheryl Jackson, said of the quilts her sister makes. “She’s always embroidered; (our) mother taught her how.”

Recently, Stanley finished her latest quilt and is almost finished with another.

She does all of the embroidery and crochet work herself, but sometimes gets help to attach the backing of the quilts from family members or from a local pastor’s wife.

And what does she do with all of these quilts when she’s finished making them?

“I make them to give to people, to give them away,” Stanley said.

For example, Stanley recently gave a quilt to a waitress at Sonic who was about to have a baby.

Maybe there’s something about making quilts and blankets that is therapeutic to anyone who takes to needle and thread.

For Jane Stanley, it seems, not only has making these quilts helped to work through her arthritis and Parkinson’s, but it’s a way to do something that benefits others and a way to leave a lasting impression on those who receive her works of cloth art — a powerful message of hope in the face of adversity.

“Because of my Parkinson’s I don't get out very much,” Stanley said. “I can’t write letters, but I figured God let me use my hands for this.”

Remarkably, Stanley said when she’s knitting and embroidering quilts and blankets, her hands don’t hurt at all and she’s able to use them freely, almost as a sort of artistic gift from God.

Jackson has two tablecloths Stanley made.

“You have to see them,” she said “They’re so beautiful I started crying.”