Dorothy West described Mayme Reese as the “color of roasted almonds, gray hair, black eyes (wears glasses). Large Woman; speaks with a trace of what is called the Geechie (Gullah) dialect. Has a sense of humor and is interested only in movies and the church as outside activities.” Although Reese’s life in Harlem may have been limited to church and movies, her life in South Carolina was steeped in Quilting. Mayme remembered attending “quilting parties at least twice a year” where three or four ladies would sit on opposite sides of a quilting frame and “you’d decide before how you were going to make the stitches. If you were going to have a curving stitch, you’d sew one way. If you were going to quilt block fashion, you’d sew that way.” The “men-folks” would have to fend for themselves on these occasions, eating cold food, and if they complained “we’d remind ‘em ‘bout keeping warm in the winter.”