The late Mary Reuter of Darlington, formerly of Platteville, did a lot during her lifetime. She was a daughter to William and Mary Fure, and a sister to four siblings. Later, she was a wife to Norbert Reuter, who she farmed alongside, and a mother to the couple’s nine children: Nick Reuter, Jared Reuter, Alan Reuter, Laurie Dickison, Terry Reuter, Kelly Reuter, Julie Heiring and Chris Stephens. One son, David passed away in 1982.
    In addition to farming with her husband, Mary worked at Platteville Telephone Company, Lands’ End and was also a cashier at Montgomery Ward.
    She was involved with church, singing in the choir, and enjoyed farming, gardening, sewing and being with her family, which grew to include many grandchildren and some great-grandchildren as well.
    Mary passed away at age 75 in April of 2011 after a full life, but recently her family found something that she left behind.
    Jared Reuter, Belmont, one of Mary’s sons had taken some boxes from his mother’s house after her passing which turned out to be full of fabric and stuffing left over from the days when Mary made quilts.
    Jared said his daughters made little projects with some of the material, but soon discovered that they would never be able to use it all. One of his daughter’s classes in school was making quilting squares at the time, so the family offered to donate the material to the class.
    The teacher gratefully accepted the donation, but later in the year also discovered that she would not be able to use all of the material and contacted the Reuters to ask if she could re-donate what remained to a quilting group in Belmont that creates quilts for people in need. Jared of course said that was fine.
    Just recently Jared and his family were in the Belmont school for a class program and happened to walk by the school’s office. The bookkeeper, Shelly Knebel, presented Jared with a fully completed quilt.
    Knebel said, when the bottom of one of the boxes of material was finally reached, there was a quilt to be found. It was all pinned up and ready for stitching. One of the members of the quilting group hand stitched the quilt to return to the family in appreciation of the donation.
    “I was overwhelmed with thanks and emotion for the thoughtfulness of these ladies to do this for us, as they could have easily just stitched it up and gave it away without us knowing,” said Jared.
    Jared shared a photo of the quilt with his siblings via email and took it to a recent gathering of the Reuter siblings; so they could all get a chance to look at their mother’s last quilt.