Oct. 14--While in the hospital caring for a 12-year-old daughter who'd been diagnosed with cancer, Nancy Pearson came upon a magazine story on quilting and picked up the craft as a therapeutic endeavor.
From that random start four decades ago, Pearson became an internationally renowned quilt artist who taught the craft around the world, wrote an essential book on applique and created a piece rated one of the best 100 quilts of the 20th century.
A longtime resident of Morton Grove, Pearson, 85, died Oct. 2 in a Wheeling assisted-care facility after an illness.
"She did phenomenal applique, especially flowers," said Judy Schwender, curator of collections at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Ky., where Pearson taught several times. "You would think you could smell them. She influenced a lot of quilters."
Born Nancy Hall in 1930. Pearson was raised in Skokie and graduated from what would become Niles East High School. She worked her way through classes at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, then was a graphic artist for seven years, most of that time for Illinois Bell Telephone.
In the early 1950s, she attended a wedding and met Ken Pearson, a World War II veteran who a short time later was recalled to service in the Korean War. The two corresponded by mail and, after he returned, married in 1953, family members said.
When the couple's first child was born in 1956, Pearson left her job and concentrated on raising her family, her son Dan Pearson said. The family moved in 1958 to Morton Grove, into a home Ken Pearson built. Nancy Pearson served as Cub Scouts den mother for all three of her sons and was also involved in her daughter Mary's Girl Scouts activities.
In about 1974, Mary Pearson was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and underwent intense treatment at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. In a 1999 interview with the Alliance for American Quilts, Nancy Pearson said she saw the quilting story in Family Circle magazine at the hospital.
"I thought, 'I need this,' so I went to the local quilt shop and bought my material and ... started out," Pearson said. She recalled that the polyester "had this horrible musty smell" and that her first quilt had "tiny little dimples all over the front, but it was my start."
Her daughter recovered, and by the early 1980s, Pearson had developed enough confidence in three finished quilts to enter them in a competition at a major show in Houston. She recalled winning five ribbons for the quilts, "and that's all I needed."
Over the decades, Pearson taught across the U.S. and around the globe, including Canada, England, New Zealand and South Africa, and was recruited to teach on Caribbean cruises, relatives said. In 1999, a consortium of quilting organizations placed Pearson's "Nancy's Garden" among the best 100 quilts of the 20th century.
"It provided her a passport to the world," said her son John, adding that the artwork became a form of self-fulfillment. "She grew from it."
The popularity of Pearson's work led to her book, "Floral Applique: Original Designs and Techniques for Medallion Quilts," published in 2000 and widely used by beginners and veteran quilters. Pearson also established a business through which she sold her original quilt designs.
In the 1999 interview, Pearson said she viewed quilts as "a nice cross between utility and beauty."
When Mary Pearson was diagnosed with cancer again in about 1995, Nancy Pearson stopped quilting and cared for her daughter full time until Mary died in 1997, John Pearson said.
Pearson was known to lavish Christmas gifts on her grandchildren, and also taught them quilting and baking. She loved to read English history and biographies, became an adventurous chef and developed a deep love of the outdoors, relatives said. Pearson held sewing circles at, and made decorations for, St. Martha Catholic Church in Morton Grove. She organized five or six bike-a-thon fundraisers for the St. Jude hospital, John Pearson said.
Family and friends said her teaching reflected her warm personality, quick laugh and ability to deliver clever one-liners.
"She was just very down to earth and brought you up to her level," said Paula Hitz, a traveling companion, quilting enthusiast and friend of 25 years. Hitz recalled Pearson having "no sense of direction," but the two viewed getting lost as part of their adventures "because we would meet new people."
"She would love to sit and listen to stories," Hitz said. "She could relate to anybody."
Pearson's teaching had impact far greater than she'd anticipated, said Hitz, who recalled a quilting lesson Pearson taught in South Africa. A woman from Mozambique attended and shared that her entire family had been killed in violence in the country from the mid-1970s through early 1990s.
"She said the only thing that got her through and kept her going was working on Nancy's quilt patterns," Hitz said.
Pearson also is survived by a third son, Jeffrey; nine grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. Her husband died in 2013.
Services were held.
tgregory@tribpub.com
