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What makes the quilts valuable to Dee? What makes the quilts valuable to Maggie?

The quilts are valuable to Dee because she is eager to take proofs of her heritage back home with her.  She has suddenly become interested in having items that were hand-made by family members; however, those items are still being used by her mother and sister.  Despite this, Dee wants to take them and turn them into "something artistic," something decorative, like a centerpiece.  She's not interested in the stories behind these items, who made them and when.  She's only interested in having pieces of her heritage to show off to others.  That's why she would hang the quilts on the wall instead of actually use them.


For Maggie, the quilts are valuable because they are something that she will make use of and because they are something which she has been promised.  In a family where her sister got everything -- new clothes and shoes, books, an education away from home -- Maggie has had very little of her own.  However, Mama promised these quilts to her and they are meaningful to her because they represent her heritage as well, but, to Maggie, heritage is something that is living and present, not something that is dead and past.  "'[Dee] can have them, Mama,' [Maggie] said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. 'I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts.'"  Unlike Dee, Maggie holds the memories of her family more dearly than she does the quilts, but the quilts acquire their value, in part, as a result of their connection to those memories. 

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