WOODVILLE – With Old Man Winter making his presence known lately in the region, a good, warm, handmade quilt is just the perfect thing to keep warm.
Last Tuesday at the Woodville Veterans of Foreign Wars (Robert M. Pate Post 2033), one Tyler County veteran was presented with a beautiful handmade quilt through the Quilt of Valor honor. Tina Cleberg, a VFW Legacy Life Member and long-serving veterans’ service officer for Tyler County, was presented the quilt by the Sassy Scrappers quilt guild.
Cleberg, who recently had to step down from her office to focus on her health, served for 20 years in the Army, from 1988 to 2008, and served in Germany, Korea and in Afghanistan during the War on Terror.
VFW Senior Vice Commander J.W. Kern said that Cleberg, in the years that she served as the county’s veterans service officer, had assisted thousands of veterans, widows and their families with a wide variety of services.
Julie Cravey, of Sassy Scrappers, gave some history of the Quilts of Valor program, which began in 2003 when a quilter named Catherine Roberts made a quilt for her son who was then deployed to Iraq. Since then, Cravey said, more than 427,000 quilts have been awarded.
“The Quilt of Valor mission, basically, is to honor service members and veterans who have been touched by war,” Cravey said. “These quilts are an expression of our gratitude meant to thank and comfort you for leaving all you hold dear to serve,” she added.
Cleberg, who, despite an ongoing battle with cancer, was in good spirits, and shared some information about her service and her life with those in attendance.
She recounted how she and her husband Stan, whom she met in the service, were together at the Berlin Wall, when the wall fell in 1989 to signal a reunification of Germany.
“I’ve had an eventful life…every day is a gift,” she said.
