By Sandi Latimer
Staff Writer
Family and friends finished a crocheted American Flag for Juanita Price, who started the project, but passed away before she could finish it.
Juanita Price was an avid crocheter for much of her life. With her hooks and a few hanks of yarn, she’d turn out project after project.
A little more than two years ago, at the age of 82, the Grove City resident embarked on a big project – crocheting an afghan that resembles the U.S. flag and covers a davenport.
“She got the red and white stripes done,” said Janet Bullock, who considered Price her ‘second’ mother. “But she didn’t get to the 50 stars to put on the field of blue.”
For a while it appeared the project might never get finished. Price’s craft of crocheting didn’t rub off on any of her four daughters.
“I tried it, but couldn’t catch on,” said daughter Ruby Skipper in whose possession the endeared afghan now rests.
Even Bullock, who asked Price if she would be her ‘second’ mother after her own mother died when she was young, couldn’t pick it up.
Price suffered congestive heart failure and her eyesight was going, said Bullock, who lives in Grove City.
After Bullock’s mother passed away, Price spread her wings like a mother hen gathering her chicks and mothered her.
“Juanita was like a mother to me,” Bullock said. “She believed in me, and we did a lot of things together.
“I’d take her to get her hair done on Saturdays and take her to church on Sundays,” she added.
That’s why Bullock was determined that this project was to be finished. She approached a friend, Sue Connor, also of Grove City, to see if she could help.
Connor picked up the crochet hook and white yarn and made and attached the 50 stars on the field of blue.
Connor knew she was working on a deadline, of sorts. Bullock was worried about Price’s eyesight, although the older woman could see some of the work in progress and knew her project was being worked on.
However, Price never got to see the finished project. She passed away Sept. 7 of this year, about two months shy of her 85th birthday. Connor finished the afghan the day Price died.
