Kathleen Lindsey is an African American historian who uniquely combines her talents of quilting and storytelling in theatrical appearances throughout the East coast, bringing awareness and understanding to all nationalities.
After completing her High School education, Kathleen, or "Kat" as she prefers to be called, was employed at her local school district. She worked as a teacher's assistant for the reading department and as a teachers aide with handicapped/mentally challenged elementary and high school students. She became very interested in literacy for young children, taking courses to improve her writing skills.
During this time, a span of twenty-five years, quilting and storytelling was a favorite pastime for Kat and her seven children. She merged the two skills, using them as visual aids and learning tools for both children and adults.
Ms. Lindsey served as president of a local quilting guild and began teaching quilting in craft stories, libraries, schools, churches, and community centers. Quilting took on a new perspective when she was featured in Good Housekeeping Magazine, January of 1996.
In 1988, after the death of her son, Kathleen worked with many families through the organization, M.A.D.D., Mothers Against Drunk Driving. As a volunteer for Gloucester County Chapter of Victims, Kat gave lectures on the dangers of drinking and driving to families, groups of D.U.I. offenders, and High School students. She shared her quilting experience to help families cope with grief together. The quilts created in memory of their loved ones is displayed at many conferences and formal presentations given by M.A.D.D.
Kat has continued her ancestors (particularly her grandmother) legacy of creating diaries on quilts to depict special events in their lives. Her knowledge and interest in Aftican -American history has spawned a successful stage presentation, along with her six sisters, called "A Stitch in Time, " which has been televised on various cable stations and a nationally known documentary program called "Visions." Kathleen's performance of A Stitch In Time has been aired on New Jersey Public Television's (Classroom Close ups)
Many of her pictorial quilts shown in the presentation have been displayed throughout the middle Atlantic and New England states museums and libraries. The Phildelphia Inquirer, Gloucester County Time, Atlantic City Press and the Courier Post have featured articles about her quilting and storytelling.
Most recently, Ms. Lindsey used an old family recipe for Sweet Potato Pie as the theme for a prize-winning quilt. The Sweet Potato' Pie Quilt has been admired by thousands of children and adults over the past five years and is featured in her fIrst children's picture book for middle readers called Sweet Potato Pie published by Lee & Low Books. She also plans to put the story on audio-cassette with a raised picture of the quilt to be as a hands-on experience for the blind.
Ms. Lindsey gives presentations for TV documentaries, colleges, churches, schools, (pre- Kindergarten to 12th grade), and various historical societies. She has been the subject of a Rutgers University, Newark, a student thesis about Kat's quilting and how her life is parallel to her ancestors. In addition, Ms Lindsey has presented her program for the Commissioner of Education in Trenton, NJ.
One of her latest most prized achievements was to pose for a 70 foot high mural in Philadelphia Pa. on the I. Goldberg store in center city. (Miss Kat) as she is called depicts the famous Underground Rail Road conductor Harriet Tubman.
Kathleen Lindsey lives with her husband David and their two youngest children in Clayton, NJ.
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