jewelry, stained glass, wood flowers, quilts, musical jew-
‘velopment manager fitting shirts for Polo and LandsEnd.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
ant
by ELIZABETH STEWART
staff writer
Christmas is sew soon for Dora Bridges, 77, the propri-
etor of the Gift Shop at the H. Lawrence Patrick Senior
Center. :
Obviously Bridges loves what she does and does what
she loves. She doesn’t sew as much as she used to do but
she can tell immediately if handwork is perfect and she
shows off the handiwork of seniors who make some extra
cash by offering their baby gift items and holiday gift items
to the shopping public at the senior center.
Seniors are busy with their Christmas gift stitching ad
ceramic making and the gift shop is also stocked with other
reasonably-priced items purchased at shows and also on
consignment by a variety of vendors. Popular handbags,
elry boxes, kids jewelry, and many more beautiful items
are on the shelves.
Bridges, who has worked part time at the gift shop for
five years, brings to her job over 40 years in experience in
pattern making and sewing.
Her passion in pattern making started at the former Mr. ,
Sweet (Sweetree Mills) sewing samples and then making
patterns for the garment industry for Lincolnton Knit Sew
and then Clearnet in Clover, SC where she was product de-
She took her industrial machine, her cutting table, etc. to
Plonk Brothers Department Store and worked for a year
hemming pants and doing alterations before Plonk’s closed
downtown.
photo by LIB STEWART
See SEW on next page
The Kings Mountain Herald
Page 1C
Dora Bridges shows some of the gift items displayed by senior citizens in the gift Shh at the H.
Lawrence Patrick Senior Center. :
That ride at Disney World won't keep her off the dance floor long
By EMILY WEAVER
Editor, Kings Mountain Herald
thinking about all of the dif-
ferent cities she has trav-
eled’ ‘to: ‘there. 1
haven’t gotten to
Alaska yet, but
I’m working
on it.”
KINGS MOUNTAIN - Guynetha
Warren barely looks a day over 50 and
when she smiles her face glows with
youthful vigor. But she has has lived a
was
there years before Hurricane
Katrina did, but devas-
tation still existed. It .
some of the faces
she saw.
Remember-
ter serving up meals and feeding 32-45
people from 9 a.m:-1 p.m. each weekday.
- “I love my seniors to death,” she said
with a grin. “They said they missed me
when I was out and I sure did miss
them.”
She started volunteering at the center
written on
full life...really lived.
The mother of four children, who
raised seven, is still very active even after
a hip replacement surgery in May. She
has not made it back onto the dance floor °
yet or dived back into the swimming pool
- places she regularly frequented before
her hip gave out - but she plans to soon.
Her hip started acting up after-a ride at
Disney World. She took her grandchil-
dren and great grandchildren to the Or-
lando theme park last year. The ride
looked fun. She had to try it. She finally
talked one of the kids into riding it with
her and off they went.
“He said he didn’t want to. I should
have listened,” she laughed.
Warren has been to a lot of places over
the years. Family road trips, bus excur-
sions and other get-a-ways have taken
her to Texas, Canada, California, New
York, New Jersey, St. Louis, Mo.; At-
lanta, Ga.; Washington, D.C.; Maryland,
New Orleans, La.; West Virginia, Ten-
nessee, South Carolina, Virginia and
~ other states.
“I’ve worn Florida out,” she laughed,
Jazzy Power Chairs
“I've been
to a lot of
places and
seen a lot of in-
teresting things,”
she said.
Some of those
sights were eye-
openers that still
make her tear up to oF
this day. In a trip to
New Orleans she was
taken back by the sight
of so many homeless
people. - She
made it
fo .
§ w ae
ing the home-
less in New
t+ Orleans and
Washington,
tears to her eyes.
“We don’t realize
how lucky we are,
how good we have
it,” she said.
Warren works in
the kitchen at the
Patrick Senior
&
D.C., still brings .
Brown, Dorothy Humphries,
in 2002 after retiring from working 22
years at Copeland Corporation, a manu-
facturing plant in Shelby. Retirement and
the back surgery that spurred it didn’t
slow her down then either. She is very ac-
tive at the center.
She started line dancing there about
four years ago and now heads the nutri-
tion department, working in the kitchen
with five other volunteers: Roberta
Mary
Jamerson, Wilma Robbins and | Margaret
Evens.
A lifelong resident of Kings Moun-
tain, Warren is a member of Mt. Zion
Missionary Baptist Church, where she
sings in the choir, serves as usher and acts
on the history and nominating commit-
tees.
She gave birth to four children:
Samuel Falls, Jr, Tony Falls, Felicia
Falls, Mapple Falls and has raised three
others over the years. She has seven
grandchildren and seven great grandchil-
dren.
“I really have Shioved my life,” she
said.
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