Emma Jean Smith (Grass Valley) is a master of many traditional crafts and activities including quilting, sewing, knitting, canning, and gardening. Smith acquired her skills from her mother. Smith, a 4H teacher for 52 years, passed those same skills along to several more generations of students.
Bio
Emma Jean Smith (Grass Valley) is a master of many traditional textile crafts, gardening, and canning. She works with a variety of textiles. As a child, Smith would watch her mother quilt, and eventually her mother taught her. She became a master quilter and even quilted a stunning king-size “elongated trip around the world” quilt for one of her granddaughters. When Smith was 10, her mother took her to a woman in Grass Valley who taught her to knit. Today, Smith is a master quilter and a professional caliber knitter. Later in life, after she was married, Smith apprenticed for 10 months with a neighbor, who had apprenticed herself with a professional tailor in her native Switzerland. Smith became an expert seamstress and is justifiably proud of the elaborate wedding gown she made for her granddaughter. In addition to her textile work, Smith enjoys the gardening and canning. She grew up canning on the ranch with her mother. She plants, maintains and harvests her own vegetables including peas, potatoes, Walla Walla onions, beets, carrots, parsnips, lettuce, spinach, beans, corn, and tomatoes. She also grows raspberries, gooseberries, and pink currents. Smith continues to enter her canned good in the county fair each year. Now retired, Smith taught a variety of her skills for 4H for 52 years.
