Blacksheep Handweavers' guild sadly lost a founding member, Glory Dail Richardson Koehler, who died at home on January 23rd 2002. Glory was born in Rochester, Minnesota on September 17th, 1924 and moved to the Bay Area as a young girl. She attended Palo Alto High School and Stanford University, after which she received a Masters in Fine Arts in weaving and textile design from the School for American Crafts at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.
During World War II, she was a flight instructor in the US Navy, and in 1946 she married Wayne Lewis Koehler. Wayne and Glory then moved to Rochester, New York, where he worked for Eastman Kodak. Following her husband's death in 1964, and her mother's a year later, Glory and the children spent over a year traveling in Mexico. Glory returned to the Bay Area in 1970.
Glory was a nationally known weaver, spinner, and dyer who taught around the country. She was active in the Handweavers' Guild of America, and she was one of the founders of our own Black Sheep Handweavers' Guild. She also served as a board member of Urban Ministry and was active in the First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto. She was predeceased by her son, Mark, and is survived by her daughter, Dail Ann of Las Vegas.
In 1985, Glory was helping at a sheep to shawl event in Portola Valley Ranch, and teaching children to spin. In 1993, Glory described herself as 'spinning a lot in order to explore ancient Oriental leno techniques', and she was a judge at the Monterey County Fair wool show. One of Glory's strong interests was the Pre-Columbian textiles of Highland Bolivia and Peru. She presented a program about them to the guild in February 1998. She explained that many of the greatest textiles of history were produced in this geographic area and were unknown to western civilizations until the Spanish conquest in the 15th century. Techniques were used that are impossible to replicate on looms using harnesses or shafts. Most were produced on ground or backstrap looms. The role of the women weavers was unique, as they were considered like royalty.
Glory worked with a team of conservationists for five years curating an exhibit of Bolivian textiles which was shown at the Stanford Art Gallery and the deYoung Museum. With Mary Black and Virginia Rutherford, materials in the collection of the Stanford University Anthropology Department were also documented and prepared for permanent storage.
A memorial service for Glory was held at First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto on March 23, 2002. For that occasion, the guild wove a communion cloth from Glory's own handspun yarn, and presented it to the church in her memory.
I always appreciated Glory's desire to promote excellence in spinning and weaving.
In particular, I appreciated the time she took at the 2000 CNCH to write a critique for each item in the handspinning category.
It showed how dedicated she was to helping each of us become better craftspersons.
Beryl Moody
My best memories of Glory are her laugh and her jokes.
I also was very comfortable and very at ease with her because of her magnetic personality.
I love her.
I'm going to miss her a lot!
Ghislaine Gery
No matter what the topic, Glory had in-depth knowledge, and she was also great at sharing her basic, hands-on knowledge; for example, she showed me how to use your fingers when counting the threads
in the warp cross.
She also was knowledgeable about esoteric topics like triaxial weaving and Peruvian textiles.
She was a great encyclopedia and will be missed.
Gudrun Polak
Glory introduced us to weaving.
She sat next to Rose in her very first weaving workshop, held her hand firmly through her first warping, and guided her through an enjoyable first experience. Then she provided her
with a table loom, and gave endless advice about books, yarns, teachers,
and faltering projects.
When Marie-Christine got pulled in, she also benefited from Glory's good advice on every conceivable topic, and her kindness.
We had great times at her house, whether she offered space for workshops to all
or just had a few people over for an evening's spin and football game.
Through it all, Glory showed not only endless generosity and great
common sense but the most wicked sense of humor.
We miss her... Rosemarie Lewis and Marie-Christine Mahe.
My first meeting with Glory was my first Blacksheep meeting, and
when I got to the church everyone was standing outside because some other
group was in our room and wasn't leaving.
Someone called Glory and a little
latter this white haired lady put keys in the door, closed it she had words
with them.
To this day I don't know what she said, but they made a fast retreat.
I later told her about the place I first learned to spin and she knew the
name of the place, The Spinning Wheel, and the lady that owned it, Marion, but she didn't know what happened to her.
In that first meeting, she anounced that Helen Pope had died amongest her friends peacefully.
I was very touched by this.
She looked over that old wheel that I found at the antique fair and gave me her
view that it probably came from Canada and that finding someone to make the parts would be the problem.
She told me to go to the library and look for a book called "Keep me warm one nite", which I did.
She never saw that old wheel after I got it fixed, I intended to bring it to her spinning wheel group but didn't get the chance.
I must have talked to her just before she died, and the day I talked to her she was a lady that was content with her life, we talked about dogs and her
spinning group and other things, she had some church things she was looking
forward to and I got the impression that all was well for her.
This is how I'll always rember her.
That last conversation.
Jessa Foot.
Last updated: 9/23/03