Jessica King

I'm not quite sure what this is--it's not a blanket, not a quilt, but it's definitely handmade by my biological grandfather Claudie. My father never knew his dad since, shortly after my father was born, Claudie was arrested and convicted of forging a US Treasury check in 1943. Claudie was sent to serve his two-year sentence in McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary, outside of Seattle, WA. While an inmate, Claudie created this, and another woven/knotted/embroidered piece in red and white that reads "Mary" for my grandmother. He also solicited a portrait of him and my grandmother from another inmate. Tragically, within 8 months of his release date, Claudie died, and the cause of his death has many speculations in my family, from pneumonia to a fatal head wound from being thrown into his cell. On a trip to Seattle, I was able to research Claudie's incarceration at the National Archives there, which is where I learned most of what I know about his arrest, based on the records they house from the federal penitentiary on McNeil Island. This piece, along with the hand drawn portrait of Claudie and my grandmother, hangs above my dining room table. Looking at this piece, I often think about how Claudie, a new father, must have felt an immense pressure to provide for his wife and newborn son while living in a city where they had no family and no social support network during WWII, which led him to make the decision he did.