Loretta Weeks got in touch and shared some pictures of her pillow top, which she also knew as a cushion cover. Her father, John Weeks, of Broad Cove (now Duntara) made the pillow top while working for the American army.
Weeks notes, "my father worked on the pillow top in Fort Chimo in northern Quebec, this was when Fort Chimo was just a small settlement. He was working on communications towers for the American army. I was told that he finished the top when he came home for a break in the winter."
This was not a common craft in Duntatra and the only pillow tops Weeks knows of are the few her father made. But her father was a very creative man and tried his hand at many activities such as furniture making, boat building, upholstery and carpentry (he built his own home in Duntara). He also made wheelbarrows and truckleys.
"Dad could also knit and no woman could darn a vamp like him! He could upholster anything and could sew covers for the old daybeds and chesterfields better than anyone could ever buy."
Weeks' father loved diamond patterns, "there are diamonds on the front door lintel and frame on our house in Duntara. I have a table back home with a marquetry top that has inlaid diamond patterns on it and there is also a wooden box he made with diamonds inlaid in the design."
Weeks' father passed away May 2, 2011 after a brief illness, at the age of 88. Today Weeks holds on to her father's pillow top, with its unique diamond pattern, as a reminder of him and his handiwork.
"He was quite the character in a quiet, soft-spoken way. This pillow top is the only one we have from him adventures of working away all those years."
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